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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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Writing About Baseball: The Slump from The Postcard & Other Short Stories
I’ll always have a little bit of baseball in my soul, even all these years later after having worked for the Orioles. The truth is, I grew up in baseball. I did. From the age of 19 through my early 30s, I learned so much from working for the Baltimore Orioles organization. That experience molded me and helped me in the careers I have chosen now. It also gave me some pretty remarkable friendships (and I also got a husband and two great kids out of the deal). One of those careers I have today is that of a writer of novels and short stories. Today, I decided to share…
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A Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next Week…The Postcard and Other Short Stories & Poetry
If you’ve read Jojo Moyes’s book, Paris for One and Other Short Stories, or Rosamunde Pilcher’s The Blue Bedroom, then you’ll have an idea of what’s coming in my new book The Postcard and Other Short Stories & Poetry. Heavily influenced by Rosamunde Pilcher as a young woman, and loving every story she wrote for The Blue Bedroom, I think I fell head-over-heals in love with writing—and wanting to tell stories—after reading her work. Her novels that followed such as The Shell Seekers, Coming Home, and September all inspired me to write stories where relationships and setting are the main drivers of the work. Likewise, Jojo Moyes has been a…
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Prettiness & Priorities
I don’t know about you, but I’m welcoming 2016 with open arms. While 2015 wasn’t awful or anything I want to forget, it was incredibly busy and hectic, more so than years in the past. Juggling the children’s schedules, my husband’s new job, the writing of a textbook with my two dear colleagues, and teaching a full load of courses among other things made this year go by like a flash. If I have neglected you as a friend in 2015, please know it was unconsciously done. There are only so many hours in a day, and unfortunately, to do lists often take priority over having a good time. But…
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The Postcard, Part 2
The Postcard This is Part 2. A few people asked me what happened with Emily and what was going on, so I decided to continue it. If you don’t remember what happened in Part I, click here to read it. Here’s Part 2… Alan looked at his watch. He felt ill. Not because he was on his way to see Emily and try to set things right, but because he’d been sick about what had happened for over a month. He didn’t even mean what he’d said to her that morning when she couldn’t get off the sofa and the tears continued to pour down her face. Sometimes you say…
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The Postcard: Today’s Friday Fiction
A short piece of fiction for this lovely Friday morning. Emily rolled over in her bed, the glare of the sun creeping through the sheer drapery that hung from the tall ceilings. As she stirred, she’d almost forgotten where she was for a moment, then she heard the movement of cars down below, the sounds of a sleepy city coming to life. She stretched. She had just succeeded at sleeping through the night for the first time in a week. She stepped out of bed feeling unusually peaceful despite what she’d been through over the last month. She’d been lucky to find this flat—small as it were—but she was here.…