Any time that anyone mistreats, cheats, or defrauds one of my children, my momma bear claws come out. This week, Amazon turned me into a bear. My eldest son recently finished writing a novel. The work took over two years to complete and was created in the middle of the night on weekdays and during […]
This is a shameless promotion for my eldest son’s novel, coming out in a few weeks. More to follow.
When you hear a story read aloud, you can enjoy the emphasis and drama in the voice of the storyteller. Their expression of the people and events become yours, too. When you read a story, on the other hand, your imagination brings images to mind and so your own perceptions inform your understanding. That distinction […]
A couple of days ago, I discovered something I wrote when I was in my twenties. It was an essay entitled “Why I Am Not A Feminist.” It represents a moment in time when I had mixed feelings about the women’s movement. I did not think about women’s rights when I was growing up because […]
I once took a course, many years ago, that required me to write poetry. I have never considered myself a poet or a connoisseur of poetry, but I did as I was asked. That poetry was put into a ring binder and added to a box of miscellany that I recently rediscovered. Here are a […]
It’s gone. That box that I have talked out in a couple of blog posts (here and here) and that I have been packing around for fifteen years, is finally gone. I opened it up, looked superficially at the contents, and decided there was too much to sort through. Inside the box were three big […]
Here are three more books you might like and my thoughts about them. Little Cruelties by Liz Nugent. Sometimes children fight for their parents’ affection and/or attention. This story is about what happens when that competition continues into adulthood. It involves three brothers, each of whom is not very likeable but each for different reasons. […]
I don’t dream. I can go for months or years, even, without being aware that I have dreamed. Once in a while I might be startled awake while dreaming, but after I have gone back to sleep I don’t remember the dream. I haven’t woken up in the morning remembering a dream for years, until […]
Today I have three books ready to give away and before I do that I thought I would write a short review of each of them. Where I live, the libraries are currently closed as are most retail stores, but thankfully Indigo (aka Coles, aka Chapters) bookstore is available online. I sometimes also get books […]
There are many ways in which you might obscure a message that you are trying to send. One of them is by burying the main idea somewhere in the middle of a body of text instead of at the beginning or at the end. Another is by providing too much background information. Similarly, being too […]
My therapist told me the other day that I need to find my people. I think she is right, and I am going to get on that, but it struck me when reading my local paper that Ray Wold, a complete stranger who comments on newspaper articles, will not be one of them. Because of […]
I interrupt this series of posts about murals to (a) apologize and (b) vent a little. The apology is necessary because I have no idea how my posts appear on your electronic device but I’m pretty sure my last couple of posts were a bit haphazard, graphically speaking. They looked more-or-less OK to me before […]
In a week when the person most qualified for the US presidency withdrew from the race, it seems appropriate to draw your attention to a woman who should have much greater historical significance. San Jose State University has a marvelous library, named for Dr. Martin Luther King, and within it is a room dedicated to […]
Happy New Year! It amazes me to realize that I have been maintaining this blog for a decade. I would not have imagined that to be possible when I began it. The years 2010-2019 have been full of new experiences, accidents, and opportunities. I have moved from Red Deer to Edmonton, traveled to England, Scotland, […]
When I first started this blog in 2010, WordPress provided me with a perfect platform. I didn’t have the skills to create a website, and WordPress made it easy for me. I was able to upload text or to create text directly on the site and soon thereafter to incorporate photos, all without technical ability […]
When I started this blog I had the idea that I wanted to write a book but needed to start with smaller writing projects. Snowbird of Paradise has been a good place for me to gain some writing practice, and I find that I like writing blog-size pieces about my life. The book I wanted […]
I am SO happy! I just got an email from a friend I haven’t seen or heard from since the 1970s. We were students together at Bretton Hall College back in the day when we wore bell-bottomed jeans. Isn’t that marvelous? I have been doing the dance of joy in my kitchen. A little while […]
OK, I was wrong. But did you have to be so nasty about it? A couple of weeks ago, I made the mistake of engaging in a comments-section discussion in the Guardian online. The topic was the world’s overpopulation and I threw in my, under-informed, two cents worth. I had forgotten that the online comments […]
Follow my blog with Bloglovin If you like reading and/or writing blogs, you may be interested in Bloglovin’. It’s a site designed just for people like us. I am signing on there today and will have my blog posts available there in future. My blog’s home is still WordPress and I will continue to link […]
Snowbird of Paradise 