Category: family
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Alaska Bush Mother Art
I’m very proud to be giving my grandmother, La Vaughn Kemnow, a little assistance with her memoir of life on an Alaskan Homestead in the 1950s. I had no idea of the story of my mother’s childhood, and this has been a poignant labor, converting the interior and cover files for publication. I don’t know…
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Beautiful America: Merry Christmas!
Christmas is coming fast, and there is snow on the ground, but the house is dry and warm, so I am happy. Doesn’t take much to make me happy. More photos of kids, baking, charlie-brown trees, and possibly cats, this week. Growing up we never had trees at our house, so I had to go…
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Beautiful America: Holiday Greetings
I’m going to spend the next couple of weeks thinking about Christmases with family, and pictures of this time of year will appear here – some of them very much family shots. But I love my kids, and they are beautiful! Yes, yes, I’m biased. I think some of you will enjoy it, anyway. A…
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How to Write Realist YA: Part 1
I am joined today by a guest blogger, a friend who was good enough to allow me to publish some of his musings on Young Adult Lit, and what the deep problems are in the genre, and why. He has asked me to withhold his name as he is concerned, perhaps rightly, about backlash from his views…
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Beautiful America: Growing Up Outside
One of the ways I have been blessed is to have spent an inordinate amount of my childhood running wild in the out of doors. My children, for over a decade, grew up on a small farm in New Hampshire, and I was able to capture some great memories for posterity with my camera. Kids…
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Young Science Fiction
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I’m working on a short story today, about a boy and his dog… and the boy’s spaceship. Then Dave Freer posted this: Zamzummims, where he laments the loss of Science Fiction Giants in the world of the young. We need writers who can give our children wonder, adventure, and a solid science in their fiction.…
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Just a House
It was a house. I have walked out of many doors without a second glance backward. It was my family’s home for more than two decades, an old farmhouse with more problems than most women would have put up with. It was a home, and it came tumbling down. I listened to my father telling…
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Back from Vacation
I was gone a whole week, did you miss me? I didn’t even pull my laptop out to work on all week, I was busy spending time with my kids, my aunt who was visiting from Wyoming, Dad, sister, and sundry friends and family. Add to that the stresses of being home-but-not-home, and seeing the…
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Inspiring Children
I was invited to guest-blog over at Greta Burrough’s blog today, and I wrote a piece for her movement to inspire children to read, one book at a time. If you’re looking for ideas on how to get your children, or library patrons, or your students, to read more, head on over, and make sure…
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Digging into Writing
My weekly post is up at ASM: Click Here I compare two of my favorite pasttimes to one another, gardening and writing. Also, how editing is a lot like weeding!
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Birth of the Kittens
Sometime in 2011, I recall, my oldest daughter Gladiana read a book she really, really liked. Being a dutiful mother-librarian, I helped her find the next one in the series. She absorbed every one of the books by this author she could find. And, because she loves me, and knows I love to read and…