For Those of Us Who Have Never Stopped Thirsting to Learn
My article that appeared in the Tacoma News-Tribune on Sept. 7, 2015 Today is Labor Day, which in America means the start of school. I spent years on a school schedule, first as a student, then as a mother of students, then as a teacher. Now that my first grandchild...Better You Go Home: A Tense Novel by Scott Driscoll
In January I met Scott Driscoll, a Seattle author and creative writing teacher. I welcomed the opportunity to talk with him because of our common interest in the Soviet bloc countries. Scott has written a novel set mainly in the Czech Republic, titled Better You Go...Writing Dialog: –“It’s easy, huh?” –“Well, actually, no.”
It’s called trial and error, the method by which I learned (and am still learning) to write dialog. I remember my first slap-in-the-face realization that good dialog is hard to write. I was an undergraduate (way back when) and I decided to enroll in a playwrighting...For Writers: Three Observations After Months of Critiquing
In January of 2014 I began working on a MFA in creative writing with the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, majoring in fiction writing. I love the program, which is academically demanding but not academically snobby. All good writing is appreciated and...Point of View in Fiction: Some Gleanings From the Whidbey Writers Workshop
In my previous post I wrote about my first semester with the Whidbey Writers Workshop, which is the MFA in creative writing program offered by the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. I’ve been writing on my own for a long time, but these last few months with the...
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!