Everyone has stories. As I get older, the stories of my youth become more and more interesting to my sons. They can't imagine a world without electronics, without cell phones, without CD players. To me, it's daily life. To them, it's a family story. The challenge for me is to tell them every wonderful (to... Continue Reading →
Fort Snelling
Fort Snelling is in Minnesota, but I am researching a time when it was part of the Michigan Territory, just after the Black Hawk War ended in 1832. My interest was piqued by an ancestor of mine who was born at the fort in 1836. Her father was the acting sutler at the fort. Her... Continue Reading →
Creative Expression
I have always had the need to express myself creatively. I drew and colored and wrote stories, and later tried every art or craft I could. It was more than fun. My very soul demanded creative expression. I even remember making up stories in middle school and passing them off as truth--like how my mother... Continue Reading →
The End is a New Beginning
I'm excited to announce that I have finished the first draft of my newest novel, Aloha Spirit! It begins in Honolulu in 1922 and follows the main character to California through 1960. Inspired by the life of my husband's grandmother, Carmen Dolores Medeiros, the novel shows how one woman overcomes difficulties to find her own aloha... Continue Reading →
Background in Historical Fiction
One of the hardest things in writing historical fiction is to describe the world fully enough for the modern reader to imagine it while at the same time not having the character exclaim over, or even notice, items that are common to them. In our everyday lives, for example, we pass by buildings in our... Continue Reading →
Creative Nonfiction
One of the writing genres we teach in sixth grade is personal narrative. A narrative is a story, or fiction, but a personal narrative is based on a real event. The struggle is getting students to write good stories about an event in their lives. Now personal essay, or memoir, is supposedly a different genre.... Continue Reading →
Remembering
I am a pretty good gardener. I plant and trim and weed the back yard, and people compliment it. There are a few things I can't grow. Fuchsias don't like me. Neither do yellow daisies or orchids. Violets, though, have always despised me. I have never been able to get a violet to survive, much... Continue Reading →
The eBook Market
I recently read an article from Fortune online about trends in sales of ebooks. With the release of sales numbers for 2015, many publishers are reporting drops in ebook sales and predicting traditional book sales will pick up. This Fortune article attempts to explain the whole picture. This is a chart they share: Keep in... Continue Reading →
Inspired by Family
Throughout my life, I have listened avidly to stories of my family. It was no different when I married my husband and heard stories of his family. I turned my own stories into a novel, UNDER THE ALMOND TREES and I'm currently working on ALOHA SPIRIT a story of my husband's grandmother. The picture at left is... Continue Reading →