Point of view: a reader and writer’s perspective

Writing has made me a more critical reader. My latest library book lost me as a reader because of technical issues. Besides some rather drab characters and a meandering plot, the POV shifted so often I was starting to feel the main action of the story was my ability to leap about between character’s heads. I won’t tell you what [...]

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Reviving a love affair with reading

I haven’t read Tom Sawyer since, well…a really long time ago, but I’m reading it again now. The impetus for dusting off my copy is a community-wide reading affair based on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Our twin cities of Yuba City and Marysville are participating in the national Big Read project, which provides grants [...]

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Why read?

I love C.S. Lewis’s powerfully simple answer: We read to know we are not alone. We learn we are not alone in our struggle to make sense of this world. We learn that everyone throughout time struggles with various aspects of hope and despair, good and evil, love and hate, along with all the varying degrees of [...]

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Conversation with my muse: follow up

    Marco is the protagonist in my (yet to be published) children’s book, The Dead Cats’ Society.  He’s also a real cat. See photo at left.  Marco has another role in my life, being that of my muse. It’s a complex relationship, but it works. He’s the one I talk to when I need a [...]

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Kindled by a spirit

“Until it is kindled by a spirit as flamingly alive as the one which gave it birth a book is dead to us. Words divested of their magic are but dead hieroglyphs.” H. Jackson Brown Jr.

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