Palm Sunday in the Andes
Holy Week (Semana Santa) is a huge yearly event in South America: holidays from work, street closures, gory parades dramatizing Christ’s suffering, heaped-up sentimentality, sometimes drunkenness. But not everyone joins in the festivities. For many reasons,...Kurawasi, Peru–The Andes in Spring (Oh, wait, no–it’s autumn here!)
The first Monday in April my husband, Rory, and I took a hike with our son Brendan outside the Andean village of Kurawasi. Though this is generally a dry region, the area was very green and astonishingly beautiful with new growth after its rainy season. Down there,...Art and Service–Some Thoughts After a Sax Concert by Chet Baughman
Last Friday night my husband and I went to a concerto concert at the University of Puget Sound. The group performing was the University’s Wind Ensemble, and the performance featured two talented music students, both saxophone soloists, who had won a competition. One...Lakewood Playhouse’s Oliver!: True Community Theater
My husband and I recently attended Lakewood Playhouse’s production of Oliver! We went to the December 22 performance, and since closing night was December 23, this post unfortunately comes too late to send more audience members to the show. But we loved the...Going Global–in a Quechua Village Outside Abancay, Peru
Rory and I recently spent a week and a half in the Andes of Peru with our middle son and his wife. Brendan and Erin live as missionaries in Abancay, a small city in the province of Apurimac. This is one of the poorest regions of Peru, and it’s a stunningly beautiful...
Welcome!
I am a writer who loves good music and good stories. It’s been my privilege to combine these loves by writing fiction that honors the creation of beauty, even in the bleakest of circumstances, through the creation of music. Writing has also led me to a deep interest in the recent history of central and eastern Europe.
Come and explore with me!