Book Review: Ronin, The Last Reindeer
As a person who has worked with the Foster Care system, this storyline grabs me by the throat. I found myself choking up as I read about the sorting of children, like socks, at Kringletown. Ryder didn’t deserve that. No child does.
Lost Appetites
“You still hungry?”
come words
from high glossed,
almost polished
lips to make my
date appear younger,
a beauty however.
Book Review: Humbug, The Unwinding Of Ebenezer Scrooge
The characters were beautifully written, and had you feeling for them as if they were your friends/family. The harsh environment of Avocado punctuated every life choice that Scrooge made. Again totally out of left field, and wonderful.
Holiday Delights
The landfills cry out as last year’s gifts reach them.
The Earth is dying from the waste!
Abandoned toys weep as they melt into mush.
Christmas with Rita: Sip and Be Merry Tea Review
The instant the tea arrived, I headed to the kitchen, turned on the kettle, and waited for the bubbles. Lifting the lid of the tea tin, I knew instantly that delicate Christmas-y delight lay in store for my soul. Sip and Be Merry from the Republic of Tea could only offer all I had hoped for…
Quarterly Issues
Submissions open for Issue 3, Volume 1: Unknown & Unseen. Submissions close Dec 31, 2022.
November 13, 2022
It’s a simple thing. It’s something I’ve basically been doing for years. But I’ve never been intentional about it or removed distractions from my morning like this. It has been a fantastic experience. I highly recommend it to others.
November 9, 2022
Poppy Delamere is racing to save her sister from being accused of murder when she runs straight into the dashing Joshua Fielding, Duke of Langham. She finds herself agreeing to a staged betrothal in exchange for the Duke’s help. He gets protection from ring-seeking ladies while she has protection as she investigates to clear her sister’s name. It doesn’t take the entire week for more than one truth to be exposed.
November 7, 2022
But as I have developed my career as a writer and editor myself, I’ve learned to embrace and celebrate being edited. (And I do use this phrase intentionally; when our words are edited, it feels like we are being edited.)
October 22, 2022
I live in a world of my own, away from noise, crowd, and confusion, I understand your comfort is all gone, When normal me is just your illusion
October 1, 2022
September 26, 2022
A few years ago, a hurricane demolished the storage shed and several other things on my mother’s property. In so doing, the hurricane destroyed an item precious to my mother – and to me – a marbled, dark brown accordion which she found at a thrift store years ago when she was in college.
September 24, 2022
The colors are thrown like paper airplanes hard through our bodies, breathing in every drop of rainbow
September 21, 2022
Overall, The Forger’s Forgery is an exciting, intriguing literary fiction novel that keeps a reasonably quick pace, as long as you’re not expecting an action or thriller. The characters are vivid and memorable (even after a couple month gap at one point, the characters were still extremely present for me, even if the plot needed reminders!).
September 19, 2022
Each week, I make a to-do list full of things I need to accomplish on any given day. It could be fun things for the MockingOwl Roost, or maybe a tedious task for work. Whatever it is, it goes on the list. And the list is color-coordinated, with “categories” of life in different colors. For example, my grad school work is in green text, while work tasks are in red.
September 17, 2022
Here at the edge of autumn I like to practice being generous. I read a book that I don’t like just to exercise my manners,
September 16, 2022
Gertrude and Alice were on holiday in Tuscany. They wandered away from their Golden Tour Group and came upon a strange tree with a single red shiny apple on the topmost branch. They each climbed as fast as they could to see who could get to the apple first.
September 12, 2022
You see, writing theology papers isn’t just a school task for me. It’s an exploration of what I’m learning, how I’m growing, how I’m changing, how I’m developing as an adult human. So much of youth was spent regurgitating rote memorization and trying to make a grade. But now, in seminary I’m synthesizing and expanding the knowledge I’m gaining. And it is an utter delight!
September 11, 2022
“I love you and I always will.”
Last words spoken between dearest of friends
parting ways unknown.
Hope lingered therein,
that one day no more need for “always” would come
– only the existence of that fact would overtake
by revisited presence and love.
September 9, 2022
Charlie had been in Vietnam as had Drake. Charlie worked as a cook in the army and Drake operated heavy equipment, so neither of them were ever in real combat, although both had hunkered down at night when there was incoming. Back in the states when they were neighbors, Drake was a road paver for the city of Beaverton, and Charlie had a mobile sawmill, so they had a common blue-collar argot, and this could make them friends…
September 7, 2022
The Making of Biblical Womanhood was a life-changing, life-affirming, ministry-restoring, joy-filling book for me to read.
September 6, 2022
From the visionary leader, flamboyant and irritating at times, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, to the grumbling crew who forged ahead despite the dangers, the losses, and the shipwrecks, you’ll be held captive as I was, by the retelling of their incredible tale of scientific exploration, survival, and personal courage.
September 5, 2022
The elements of freedom
are the words in silence,
they dwell in the mind
of perfect bliss, they love
to rest their spirits
in mother-silence’s bosom,
and cannot ever bear
to lose sight of her.
September 3, 2022
The magic was in your words –
mostly foul,
Usually entertaining.
Daddy would shake his head in frustration.
Soft muttering, usually in Italian.
September 2, 2022
Elizabeth Gonzalez James’ modern debut novel, Mona at Sea, is the story of Millenial Mona Morales who has the misfortune of entering the workforce at the height of the 2008 economic crisis. She was top of her class, hard-working, focused, a perfectionist throughout her academic career. She was convinced it would pay off in her dream job and her dream life. Then….well, life happens.
September 2, 2022
We’ve all had moments of wanting to run away. At age 81, Bernice actually does it. Bernice has had her fair share of struggles in life, but overall, has been fairly content with her life in small-town Arkansas, where she was born, raised, and plans to someday die. She receives a rude-awakening when her daughter Sarah decides for Bernice that it’s time to sell everything and move into Sarah’s backyard bungalow in Atlanta. So, she packs her car to the brim with her cat Dolly Parton, essential books, and heads out.