An example of serious courage:  at a McDonald's I drove-through fairly late one night last week an apparently-teenage girl with a heavy Spanish accent was taking the orders, taking the money, making the change, pumping the milkshake, handing out the bag, handling one customer's money while taking another's order — all in a language that is foreign to her.  […] Read More

Once upon a time, I parasailed (twice!) over the bay at Puerta Vallarta.  That took no gumption at all; I was stupid at the time.  However  a current activity of mine is drawing on my reserves of daring:  I'm keeping the financial books for my husband's psychotherapy practice, since he left a large practice and went solo […] Read More

  I'm looking for people  who had an early rejection or discouraging word (“such as "you’ll never be any good at…”) that continued to spur them in their adult careers.  I want to briefly interview people who have benefited from the I’ll-show-‘em effect.  I'm pretty well covered in the writer/fine arts/musician category.  I especially need people […] Read More

The story was about how my husband and I this weekend toted a new fridge, labeled 350 lbs., on a tiny wobbly cart over tree roots and gravel toward our house, and how Fridge toppled and pushed Bob headfirst into the goldfish pond.  And how, as this monolith tottered into the living room, it snagged a recliner and flipped it into the conversation pit (our house […] Read More

Doe Branch Ink is a lovely writers retreat in the North Carolina Blue Ridge, hiking trails, a stream, nice little waterfall, lots of fall color, terrific food! and desks with good views.   Last fall I posted often here about leading a writing-and-critiquing week at Doe Branch Ink; I loved it, and so I'm doing […] Read More

  You need Adobe Flash Player to watch this video. Download it from Adobe.   Upgrade to Flash Player 10 for improved playback performance. Upgrade Now or More Info. close I owe it all to Manuel, the salsa instructor, and Lena, the handwriting analyst. Last week I was teaching fiction writing at Rancho La Puerta […] Read More

Doing a mountain hike plus three exercise classes in the morning. Teaching fiction writing in the afternoon. Hanging in and having fun. More later. Read More

 From Randee Russell Bieler, who wrote the Oscar-nominated short film Graffiti  as well as the short story collection Bombs.  She is self-publishing her novel Quilt, the story of a slave mother in the American South, and three contemporary mothers.     Quilt, Book 1 is in a holding pattern now, waiting for the final proof read. […] Read More

    Vanished fairy posts and a strange hiatus: an alien force hacked in and deleted  some of my blog posts, including the recent tales of fairy hunting, also blocking any comments on those posts.  Among the items sent in while I was fending off the now-defeated  invasion is this photo from Lynne Wogan.  She shot this picture of a fairy drawing and it turned up […] Read More

From Randee Russell Bieler, who wrote the Oscar-nominated short film Graffiti.  She is self-publishing her novel Quilt, the story of a slave mother in the American South, and three contemporary mothers.     Progress report:  Poised to launch the Kindle edition. The manuscript is now with an editor for a spell-check.  When that’s done, I […] Read More