IF YOU LOVED ME I’ve always been fascinated by the power of certain settings to wield control over so much of our lives. When the universal themes of survival, love, and the dreams that drive human men and women interact with extreme environments, lives can be transformed in unexpected ways. “When Seattle surgeon Emma Garrett’s son disappears on an adventurous… Read more →
Last weekend the Pen Warriors met at the Red Door for our weekend quarterly retreat. Amazingly, this is our 44th Red Door retreat! Amazing that we’ve had the special treasure of two days of discussing all things every 3 months for over eleven years! After an evening meal of Laura’s amazing beef bourguignon we planned the weekend, caught up on our… Read more →
I have the attention span of a gnat (not that anyone actually knows dip about a gnat’s attention span, nor do they know if clams are happy, but I digress…) The thing is that when I start out trying to learn about something, in this case how to write better blurbs for my ebooks, I end up sucked in by… Read more →
I don’t remember Martin Luther King Jr. very well. I vaguely recall him speaking on TV and I clearly remember the collective sadness when he was assassinated, though some of that was undoubtedly influenced by the assassination of Robert Kennedy two months later. (In my child mind the spring of 1968 was all about public weeping). While the man wasn’t… Read more →
The Pen Warriors have been getting together every three months for a two day retreat at the Red Door for over ten years now. These retreats are important to us; we eat (rather well because of our resident foodie, Laura Tobias), we brainstorm plots, dream up book titles, work on craft issues, critique, discuss the various genres, and test out… Read more →
Note: Spoiler Alert One Saturday night a while back my family and I rented Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (In an eerie coincidence, we were ten minutes into the movie when an earthquake measuring 7.7 hit a few hours north of us. Luckily there was no damage and I didn’t find out until later about it… Read more →
Last month when I met Margaret Jean Adam at the Surrey International Writer’s Conference (SIWC), I had no idea that she was going to give me a treasure. When I first spotted her, she was standing behind the BC Federation of Writers’ booth at the conference. We chatted for a few minutes before she mentioned that she’d attended a… Read more →
It’s back to school time, a time that conjures thoughts of new beginnings and, with any luck, renewed vigor for our writing. To celebrate fresh starts, we thought we’d share with you some of the best writing advice we’ve ever received. Gail Whitiker: ‘Set the book aside and let it rest for as long as you can.’ I can’t… Read more →
A wondering out loud blog… Here’s a bit of an excerpt to introduce the hero of A MAN FOR GRACE, part of my Salt Spring Island series of romances. This hero is a challenge. If you read the excerpt and the ponderings below it, I think you’ll see what I mean. ~~~… Read more →
Like a lot of people, I’m big on setting goals. I set weekly goals in the form of my ‘to do’ list and I set long term goals on my birthday which is near the end of August. I’m doing it again this year. We live in a goal-oriented, results-celebrated society. If there was a Goals R Us outlet near… Read more →
