All Posts

One of the questions I'm often asked is whether I can help someone write their story. There's no shortage of ideas out there. Everyone has a book inside them. But how does someone go about getting it out of their head and into book form? The answer is simple: they write. Sure, they could hire someone to tell their story, but then it would be told from someone else's perspective. Writing is hard work, mostly performed on top of the demands of full-time jobs and responsibilitie

When I first signed up with Wix, I had every intention of blogging regularly. It didn't take long for a full-time job and the many, many demands on time that follow the death of a spouse--not to mention the sorrow--to turn that goal into a pipedream. So here I am, six months later, drafting something my two readers might accept as a good excuse for the delay. The truth is, the past few years have been HARD. After Maury's death, a mountain of work and many bills nearly toppled

I've always loved snowstorms. There's something wonderful about hunkering down next to a crackling fire with the ones you love. The world goes quiet, winnowing out things we think are important but aren't. Baking pans slide into the oven, cups of cocoa are delivered to the man with the shovel and frozen cheeks, and if you're lucky enough to score a power outage, you'll spend evenings playing board games by candlelight. Historically, I'm the person who jumps into action during

Tomorrow, I'll send a single, carefully crafted query letter to a literary agent. If that agent is even slightly interested in what I have to offer, he'll follow the URL in my signature to this site, expecting to find a well-curated collection of writing snippets that showcase my style and voice. He'll look for evidence of engagement with readers, professionalism, voice, consistency. What he'll find instead is something far less polished and profoundly human: unflattering ph