I've always been one of those people who's trying to get more done, looking for ways to be more efficient so I can do more in the same amount of time. I even taught a time management class for writers for over ten years, sharing everything I learned so people could try new ways to get more writing done. It worked delightfully well for me for years.

Stories feed the soul. Food feeds the body. This fall, writers across the country are coming together to do both. Writers Against Hunger is a nationwide write-a-thon uniting storytellers, poets, novelists, journalists, and anyone who believes words have power. As SNAP benefits end and food insecurity rises, we’re using our creative energy to help fill plates across America.

LONG time friend and one of my favorite writers, Lyssa Kay Adams, has organized Writers Against Hunger, and I am happy to participate. Stories feed the soul. Food feeds the body. This fall, writers across the country are coming together to do both.

I love runways and bangles and color and clothes. With a sheet and two holes, I was ghastly not Vogue.

At the chiming of eleven bells, the retreat’s evening session began. Squeezed around the table, six people scooted chairs until no one brushed up against anyone else. The room’s reddish glow came from a candelabra on a nearby shelf, and the air hung thick with cedar incense.

Tracy Reed’s ability to capture an audience is unmatched. Her body of work has been described as a host of stimulating adventures and invigorating expression.

sultry afternoon in the vast cornfields reaping gold

When you love someone, you want to know everything about them. That someone, in this case, was my maternal grandmother. We shared a close bond, but there was a wrinkle on the face-map of her life that I could not trace. I wish I had asked her my questions while she was still with me. 

Old Books and Faded Dreams transports readers on a nostalgic journey with the townspeople of Tilden, a quaint community in Madison County, Nebraska. At the center of the heartwarming story is Maggie Davis, a middle-aged widow and heiress to a grand Victorian estate. The stately home, which Maggie shares with her spunky nine-year-old daughter Jenna, also serves as a bed-and-breakfast to a once regular, but now transitory, clientele.

Tracy Reed’s ability to capture an audience is unmatched. Her body of work has been described as a host of stimulating adventures and invigorating expression.

Many of us on this blog originated from OCRW, which once was called OCC. Today was the annual OCRW birthday celebration and it was fun to gather and celebrate the BBB winners, the BIAY celebrants, and those that earned roses. There were baskets for raffle, a book cover contest, a speaker, potluck, and lots of catching up and fellowship. I've been a member for over twelve years and I remember this meeting be a highlight every year.

Hitler loved the circus. According to classified reports uncovered after the war, the Fuehrer would sit in the front row of the circus and cheer on the performers he perceived to be 'working class folks' putting their lives on the line. He loved the 'woman in danger' element in the acts, as my heroine Lia di Montieri discovers when she appears in a circus in Germany in the 1930s.

I’ve told you before that I’ve been struggling the last several years with my creativity. Most of it seems to be a result of changes in my hormones during perimenopause and menopause. But before that I realized I’d gotten pretty deeply mired in burnout. Slowly, my creativity has been coming back, ideas have begun to flow again, and this past month I’ve been plotting away on my next superhero book.

I’ve been writing romance fiction for a while and this year, I got a revelation about world building. Chalk it up to naivety. I thought deep world building was reserved for paranormal or fantasy genres. Not contemporary fiction. When I wrote my first couple of books, I used the city of New York as my backdrop. I included local landmarks as points of reference to make the stories more relatable.

The Magazine of Bethlehem Writers Group

Tracy Reed’s ability to capture an audience is unmatched. Her body of work has been described as a host of stimulating adventures and invigorating expression.

A crab shell on the riverbank marked the end of day. No crab inside, just the empty carapace and claws, bright objects against the darker sandy grit along the water. Jyr laid thin branches of hemlock around the shell, then watched the river current flickering where the setting sun touched the ripples.

September featured author Kitty Bucholtz has combined her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher turned coach.

I'm back with another Quarter Days post! Smugglers, Ghosts, and Highwaymen The Bluestocking Belles and Friends have put together a collection of interrelated stories set near Brighton, England in 1817, and what fun we had researching and developing these tales. From the Devil's Dyke to Brighton, love and adventure are in the air. When Principal Officer Robert Pierce, of the Bow Street Magistrate Court sets out on the Brighton road he encounters more than the notorious thief he's hunting:

I wait eagerly for absolute darkness to lose my shadow

The Many Colors of Us: Remembering 9/11 by Veronica Jorge Most people are a combination of various cultures, though I think their ancestors tended to confine their marriages to one continent. Mine didn’t.

I recently attended the 2025 ACFW Conference in Springfield, Missouri. During the conference they hosted a ACFW sponsored reader event in the bookstore on Saturday morning. It was open to the public and promoted by all the forty plus authors who participated and the organization itself. We had a great turnout. Many readers even drove a few hours to attend the 8:30-10am event.

War is hell. Writing can also exact a toll on you that's hard to come back from. I don't propose to compare the valiant efforts of our soldiers, amazing servicemen and women, to me sitting safe behind a computer and writing about war. Not at all. I never served in combat, but I did counsel men who did (this was before women were allowed to fight in combat) and I heard the stories late at night sitting around a big, ole aluminum coffee pot in the US Army Service Club or playing pool with the men.

Think of all the writers who have encouraged you or taught you or held you together when it seemed things were falling apart. Think of all the times you've done that for others. This kind of contamination is our super power!