PODCAST-THE DAY THE VIRGIN MARY APPEARED ON MY CAFETERIA WALL PODCAST-THE DAY THE VIRGIN MARY APPEARED ON MY CAFETERIA WALL Photo Courtesy of Gaetano Cessati 0:00 / 0:00 The Day the Virgin Mary Appeared on My Cafeteria Wall The Day the Virgin Mary Appeared on My Cafeteria Wall was first published in the Blue Ridge […]
This essay won first prize in the Golden Nib for non-fiction and just appeared in the 2023 edition of The Golden Nib, an anthology of the work of Virginia writers. 0:00 / 0:00 Love Is Blind-ish Last winter, we bought a car that came with many safety features, including a blind spot monitor. Unfortunately,
FICTION Painting by John Nicolay. IN DARKNESS AS IN LIGHT, Journal of the Blue Ridge, 2022. First Place in Virginia Writer Blue Nib Contest READ HERE THE DAY THE VIRGIN MARY APPEARED ON MY CAFETERIA WALL, Blue Ridge Anthology, READ HERE HELP, Virginia Writers Project, Summer 2024, Volume 2, Number 2, READ HERE HAZEL MOON
DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Mark Twain What is Developmental Editing? My goal is to help my client create a polished manuscript ready to be sent to agents and publishers. I focus
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Our House in the Cornfield 0:00 / 0:00 Life on Aspinook (First published in The Blue Nib Journal. Re-printed with permission.) For four years, I lived in a little white Cape Cod perched atop a bluff above Johnson’s Cove on Aspinook Pond, a small body of water that spilled out of the Quinnebaug River.
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MOVIE REVIEW: BANK OF DAVE 0:00 / 0:00 Bank of Dave Bank of Dave is a true-ish story about a successful van salesman named Dave Fishwick. He’s a native of Burnley, a former mill town north of London. During the global financial crisis, Dave gave low-interest loans to his fellow townspeople, all of whom
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UNSTICKING A STUCK STORY 0:00 / 0:00 Unsticking a Stuck Story An idea for a great character drops into your mind. Then, you compose what you believe to be a magnificent first sentence, “Two hours before Simon’s life took a nightmarish turn for the worse, he stood in his grimy bathroom, under the dim light
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FOSTER CAREBOOK REVIEW Edna wastes no time drawing a hot bath for the child then scraping grime out from under nails, washing her hair, cleaning her ears. The girl describes the bath: “Then she makes me stand and soaps me all over with a cloth. Her hands are like my mother’s hand but there is
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THE CELESTIAL VAULT Photo Courtesy of Unsplash Years ago, I read a book that animated and forever changed my creative process. In The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy Sayers says, “It is a universal experience that a work of art has no existence apart from its translation into material form.” That is, people think a
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SEARCHING FOR ARTHUR’S STONE Photo Credit Simon Godfrey This story was first published in the Virginia Quarterly Review. Between grief and nothing I will take grief. William Faulkner Rain splattered against the windshield of the van. The glass fogged. Meg fumbled with buttons on the unfamiliar dashboard, trying to find the defrost. After turning on
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