Happy Leap Day, everyone! I’m taking liberties with the word leap today, to talk about a different kind of leap: taking a personal risk. I was walking around Burke Lake yesterday morning with a good friend and we spoke of how difficult it can be to strive for something we’re not sure we can attain. A lifelong…
Happy Monday, everyone! Those of us north of latitude 32 or so have been longing for the end to the snow/sleet/freezing rain and the dreary gray-brown landscape. The gardeners among us have been deluged with seed catalogs and Pinterest prompts that have us dreaming of the lush backyards we delude ourselves each year into thinking…
Hello! Six weeks ago, I announced a flash fiction giveaway offer (described in the link below), based on the last line of an 1891 newspaper article: If you meet a party of eight young men with a barber pole, don’t arrest them. They own it. The challenge was to write a short-short account of what…
Since many of us in the northern hemisphere are dealing with wintry weather (I sure hope the groundhog is right about an early spring!), I thought you might enjoy seeing a snowball fight…from the late 19th century. It seems that some things are timeless. Love the guy on the bicycle. Want more about…
Hi! While my writing pals and I are in the midst of fast draft (you can check last week’s post for more details by clicking here), I thought you would enjoy a post I wrote 5 years ago, about the beginnings of women’s collegiate basketball. See you next week, Kathy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The game of…
Hi, all! Today is the first day of a 14-day “fast draft” that several writers and I are doing together. What is fast draft, you ask? The original concept by romance author Candace Havens is a breathless writing pace: 20 pages per day for 14 days, no excuses. By the end, the writer has a complete…
With stories in the news lately about hackers from China breaking into corporate computers and stealing proprietary software and information (for example, this 60 Minutes’ feature: The Great Brain Robbery), here’s a little historical gem about Robert Fortune (1812-1880) who accomplished the reverse. The low-tech version. From 1845-1848, this Scottish botanist managed to acquire China’s closely-guarded…
Tomorrow night’s State of the Union address will be President Barack Obama’s last, during an election year already rife with divisive and derisive rhetoric. So, how about we have some fun instead? Below is a post from 2015 that surveyed social media responses to that year’s SOTU. It reaffirms my faith in mankind’s intrinsic smart-a$$ery,…
