• NCWN Fall Conference

    I attended the North Carolina Writers Network Fall Conference in Asheville this past weekend. The Keynote Speaker was Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain) Frazier spoke of how he came to be published. His wife’s good friend was an agent. How lucky can you get?   Sessions I attended: I.  Screenplay: Fake vs Fiction with Maryedith Burrell…

  • An Unethical Question

    You May Be Only as Old as You Feel was a thought-provoking read in the New York Times on Tuesday October 22nd by Emily Laber-Warren. Warren noted that studies show “(W)hen scientists ask, ‘How old do you feel, most of the time?’ the answer tends to reflect the state of people’s physical and mental health.”…

  • Update on Tom and Helen

    There are many good things about getting older but unfortunately our society holds aging as an inevitable downward spiral. That’s why I like to post about the positive when I find it. Tom and Helen are wonderful examples of a happy circumstance. I have written two posts about them. After the excerpts below, I will…

  • Learning the hard way about book promotion

    My son-in-law and daughter left for a weekend in Chicago so he could run the marathon. I stayed at their home, watching three grandkids and the two dogs. It was good timing. My life, up to now, has mostly centered on promoting my first and only book. I have been doing little else. Stories from…

  •  It Takes a Village or a City Block

    This is my 262nd Blog post. It’s a significant number for me. I spent the first twenty years of my life in a two-bedroom apartment in a three-story brick building in Jersey City, New Jersey: 262 Summit Avenue. Most of the buildings on the block were three stories with an apartment on each floor. I…

  • THE WEIRDEST HOME VISIT

    Originally posted on Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted: When I worked in the home care program at a VA hospital in Illinois, medical students sometimes came along with us nurse practitioners while we made our visits. I enjoyed showing them the reality of delivering care in the patient’s home—where we were guests—the subtle line between…