First time I've tried the big-screen approach to a holiday dinner.  Husband Bob and I on the left came from North Carolina to Arizona to have Thanksgiving with my stepson Jay and his fiance Amanda (she's the photographer) and while we ate dinner around a coffee table, my older stepson Chuck ate with us in […] Read More

Here's your Anxious Holidays list (a la Letterman): 10. Do some minor home renovating since you have guests coming; it'll be nice for them to get to see the results. 9.  Decide unilaterally that this year we are going to do things a little differently. 8.   Make your own (anything.) 7.   Shop for a last-minute tree stand or one […] Read More

….The women who ran toward the sound of gunfire.  They were courageous.  Read More

From Robert Bausch on Facebook, reprinted with his permission: It's about what he thinks we are up to as teachers and writers:   Recently I showed my students in a humanities seminar the black and white film The Miracle Worker. Some wanted to know why I thought that film was appropriate for such a class. Why did […] Read More

What genre does this novel fall under?  Oh, many!  Raunchy-edgy mystical.  Pagan Christian. Metaphysical mystery. Spiritual crisis. Church psychodrama.  Et alia.    Kay Goldstein, author of Star Child asked me to keep this online book roundelay going:  I am to answer here a questionnaire about a book of mine and then tag five more writers and ask them to do […] Read More

  The cover for my new novel Cobalt Blue, coming out in spring, arrived today.  I am thrilled.  I love the blue.  Love the simplicity of it.  Love the boldness.  (It's a fairly bold story, too, BTW.) Read More

In a few minutes, I'm going out to rip the peeling bumper sticker off my battered Ford fender.  It's time.  The contest is over.  What's important now is to unpolarize, compromise, re-integrate, harmonize, and chill. Not that it's so easy.  It continues to amaze me that the Clintons can argue so passionately for their former […] Read More

It takes serious courage to run for public office — no matter how much money and support a person may have. The process can fairly be compared to opening in front of a live audience  your college application letters or the email responses from agents and editors to your manuscript.  Or to sitting in front a world-wide audience of […] Read More

  Here's a wonderfully thoughtful useful book that can actually guide readers in figuring themselves out.  It's by the psychologist/analyst  Dr. Joseph Burgo who writes the wildly popular blog After Psychotherapy. Why Do I Do That?  (and can't you just hear yourself saying it?) offers ways to recognize our knee-jerk responses and the feelings they're […] Read More

Friday my clinical psychologist husband Bob Dick will teach a one-day seminar on using hypnosis to improve your relationships.  This is his last seminar of the year — 9-5 at our pondside log house in the woods, near Chapel Hill, NC. "Individuals and couples will use hypnosis and learn self-hypnosis while exploring a practical approach to […] Read More