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One of My Favorite Scenes
*** I’ve been decorating a little bit today for the holidays. I’m feeling terrible, still trying to deal with a chronic health issue, but I’m trying to remain positive and optimistic. Evert time I break out my Christmas decorations, I always think about a particular scene in my first novel, Beneath the Mimosa Tree. The scene unfolds at the holidays after ten years, when two former lovers and next door neighbors are reunited. After years of not speaking and feeling anger and guilt over a mistake that was made, the two come face-to-face in the driveway as Annabelle and her family return from getting a Christmas tree. Michael, home from…
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The Loss of George
* This week, I learned much too late of the passing of my favorite professor and one of the best people I knew, George Friedman. He passed away in late February. Every once in a while someone comes along and makes an impression on your life. That person, for me, came in the form of Dr. George Friedman, professor of English at Towson University. George, as I came to call him, was the singular inspiration for my first novel, Beneath the Mimosa Tree, which began as a short story in George’s class—Writing Creative Short Fiction—during my first master’s degree. When he returned a short story I wrote, and verbally told…
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Booking Remote Book Club Visits
*** As many of us are still in the “working remotely” phase of this pandemic, I’ve decided to promote virtual book club visits to help promote reading and our sanity! I’m currently booked for a book club in July and have a lot of openings for book clubs who might want to read my books and discuss them. As an author, one of my favorite things to do is to meet new people through book club discussions. As I have five books on the market, I’m happy to visit your book club virtually. I’m getting good at this, especially since the back half of the semester I just taught was…
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An Easter Contemplation About Grandparents
* Two days ago, my aunt posted the above photo of my grandparents on Facebook, wishing my grandmother (we called her Nanny) a happy birthday in Heaven. She’s been gone from us for quite some time, but seeing the photo, while we simultaneously fight this coronavirus pandemic and Easter is upon us, made me contemplate my pretty blessed life thus far. While no life is perfect, and my own family’s past year and half has been beyond weird and strange and sad and disruptive, I look back with joy on all that we have been blessed with in our lives. I was very fortunate to have all of my grandparents…
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The Thing That Connects Us
*** I was sitting here staring at a blank cursor knowing what I wanted to write but not knowing exactly how to say it. Then I remembered studying writer James Baldwin during my first master’s degree, and thought of his quote: “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who are alive, who had ever been alive.” – James Baldwin I’ve been “officially” publishing fiction now since 2012. Fiction is the best outlet to tell…
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Twilight and Twinkles and Travel
* As I tell my students in the special topics in travel writing course I teach, travel happens as soon as you step outside your door. Day trips, afternoon trips, and evening trips can all be wonderful experiences, especially when you’re sharing the time with someone you love. It can also be great to go exploring by yourself. In our local travel writing class, students often pick Annapolis as their spot. I love to read about my hometown from their perspective, some of them only visiting Annapolis for their first or second time. As I’ve grown up in this area and have spent lots of time cavorting and entertaining in…
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An Update and the Plot Overview of Little Milestones – Coming Soon
Right now, my beta readers are looking over the draft of Little Milestones. I am reading the manuscript again, as well, for the hundredth time. As well, I’ve started to create some of my marketing materials for the book. For those of us in the trenches as independent authors, it’s a never-ending cycle of book promotion, writing, and editing. We’re at it all the time as we try to build our brand and find our niche of readers. I’m still at it and I haven’t given up. Today, I’m sharing the draft of the copy that goes on the outside of a book or inside a book jacket—you know, the…
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Fiction Friday: An Update
* I’m not exactly sharing a fictional story today, but I’m sharing with you the crazy writing journey I’m on at the moment as I write my fourth fictional novel. In December, after National Novel Writing Month ended, I was 45,000 words into a new story, one that I had set in the hills of the Cotswolds in England. After a conversation with my family about how the work was going and picking their brains a little one night over dinner, I decided to relocate the story to St. Michaels on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I know. Big change. I’m a Maryland girl (see my mug below thanks to…
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Deciding to Be A Hallmark Movie in Annapolis, Not Just Watch One
* Last night, my college roommate and dear friend, Elizabeth, and I took to the streets of Annapolis for the annual Parade of Lights. Our husbands were engaged otherwise, and so we were on our own. A resident of Shady Side, south of Annapolis her whole adult life, she had never been to see the boats parade in and out of City Dock and Ego Alley, and so we decided it was the proper thing to do, seeing as how we watch a helluva lot of Hallmark movies and love the quaintness of the towns featured in them. As someone who grew up and still lives in the area, I…
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A Tear Worth Shedding and Other Things
I thought I’d start this Monday with a little recap of a whole bunch of things I’ve been doing over the last week. Let’s begin with a book recommendation. The Next Person You Meet in Heaven Some people are remarkably gifted storytellers. I finished a book at midnight last night by one such gifted storyteller: Mitch Albom. The Next Person You Meet In Heaven resonated so deeply with me that I shed many tears throughout the book. So many “themes” he touches upon in the novel are relatable. This book picks up many years later after Eddie’s death in The Five People You Meet In Heaven with Annie, the little…
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I Decided To Have A Go At It
Last summer, I wrote a short story called Life With Nan. You can find this story in my recent publication The Postcard and Other Short Stories & Poetry. What’s happened to me after writing that story is interesting. Just as Contelli’s Mimosa, a short story I wrote in college, became a full novel entitled Beneath the Mimosa Tree, so has Life With Nan started to become a novel. I fell in love with Nan and the main character of the story so much, that it prompted me to write a longer story, and so I think I’ll have a go at it. That’s right. I’m using British lingo there. The…
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The Results of My Favorite Kind of Getaway Research
Hello Dear Readers, I’m back from a fabulous weekend in Oxford, Maryland, with my husband. The Eastern Shore of Maryland is uniquely qualified to sufficiently relax you, while at the same time, invigorate your creative spirit. And if you’ve been following along on my blog for the last week, I needed the getaway so much, having pulled my lower back in the most extraordinary of ways (bending over to reach for something in a drawer, go figure!) that left me in pain for a good 10 days. Having nursed myself back from that injury to being able to enjoy the weekend without agony was an accomplishment in itself. Hours spent…
