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How Brene Brown’s research influenced my novel
Over the last few years, I’ve become enamored with Brené Brown’s research, specifically with regard to empathy, vulnerability, and shame. On campus, I’ve executed workshops about Brown’s wonderful book, Dare to Lead. If you haven’t read this book, I strongly urge you hop to it. It’s a wonderful dissection about daring leadership, and what factors play into what kind of leaders we admire and what kind of leader we, ourselves, want to be. In the course of preparing to teach others about Brown’s findings, many of her assessments were illuminating, and as I began to figure out what my next novel was going to tackle, I landed on all three…
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Friday Fodder: My Obsession with Letters & Journals
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, first, THANK YOU. Second, you may have read previous posts about writing letters and letter writing, because I’m obsessed with the notion of letter writing. And, you’ve probably also read many posts here about keeping a journal, most recently the one I wrote about keeping a journal during a pandemic. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Are you going to print out a text feed or email chain and save it in your memory box? The likelihood of that is slim to none. The lost art of letter writing is truly a loss of records. When someone takes…
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There’s Something You Should Do During Quarantine and Social Distancing
Prologue You don’t have to listen to me. But it may serve you well if you do. More importantly, it may serve someone else well. And so, let me share with you something that has the potential to be one of the best choices you’ve made during this pandemic. In This Time of Self-Quarantine and Social Distancing… I’m a teacher. I’m a writing professor. I teach people about writing. I’m also a professor of communication, and I just finished instructing two courses in interpersonal communication. We dissected theories and concepts, nonverbal and verbal communication, work relationships, friendships, and love relationships, self-disclosure, reciprocity, and so many other things about relationships. In…
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For the Love of Postcards (and other written correspondence)
I’m romantic about travel. I’m also romantic about writing. Actually, I’m kind of romantic about everything. I have a really bad case of hopeless romanticism, and have been accused many times by people who know me that I tend to see the world in an unrealistic way. That may be true, but I also do see the world in quite a realistic way. Sometimes that makes me resort to my hopeless romantic bubble, which I don’t mind being inside. When we travel, we learn more about the world around us AND ourselves. This is just true and tough to argue. No matter where you go or how far you travel,…
