Dear Readers, For better or for worse, we live in an age of identity and accountability. How often have you started to log into a site only to hear or read, “Let’s be sure it’s really you”? Next, you receive a text or email with the magic code to enter and confirm you are you.…
Hello, Adult Readers and Scary Story Aficionados! Withered leaves rattle in the chilly wind before their death-drop. October shuffles to its end. Darkness descends sooner now, encouraging owls and bats to fly about the countryside in search of earlier feasts. Jack-o’-lanterns glow and burn to ward off evil spirits. Some trick-or-treaters venture forth while others decide to huddle indoors with a bowl of popcorn, some candy, and a book or movie to elude banshees on the…
Dear Kids and All Readers, She drives a roadster (first maroon, then blue), is a force for good, unafraid to speak up, and delivers the baddies to Chief Pete McGinnis with time left over to get to Ned Nickerson’s college football game without a hair out of place. And she’s been doing all that for…
Hello, dear Readers of all ages, Kids, I know you read children’s books. But adults, do you? Reading does not always have to be a progression to increasing difficulty for adults with a creeping fear that if they pause and glance back, they will lose ground and suddenly “de-mature.” Try pausing sometime. You will survive.…
Hello, Kids and All Readers, You might say I’ve gone “raven mad” lately. I refer to the bird, not my mental state! Research for my Book 5, Jacaranda Street: Gravestone Image, has taken me to many sites about Edgar Allan Poe and ravens. I can’t seem to get enough of either topic. But for today,…
Dear Readers, Horse Lovers, and/or Admirers of the late Queen Elizabeth II, Here is a heartwarming story from the New York Times by Jenny Gross, dated September 12, 2022, that I thought might be as interesting to you as it was to me. Mr. Monty Roberts, an eighty-seven-year-old legendary horse trainer from California, has special reasons to…
Dear Kids and Animal Lovers, Recently, on one of my morning walks, I saw a murder of crows in a tall, otherwise barren eucalyptus tree. The fifty plus large black birds were waiting for . . . um, coffee? Huh? A murder of crows? What’s that? That’s the collective name for a group of crows–one of…
Dear Readers, Current and Future Architects, and Fans of Ancient Egypt, Does Egypt call to you? If so, I think you’ll enjoy this . . . I have been a proud member of San Diego’s “Save Our Heritage Organisation” (SOHO), for many years. (Yes, that’s spelled with an “S,” not a “Z.”) SOHO does the important…
Dear Readers, My research for Book 5, Jacaranda Street: Gravestone Image, continues as I seek “the real” Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). I plan to spin a mystery around some aspect of Poe’s life, but the story will be set in present day California. What I have discovered to date is that Poe used his writing…
Dear Kids, English Teachers, Librarians, Playgoers, and All Readers, Sometime between April 23 and 26, the “Bard of Avon,” William Shakespeare, was born in 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. The exact day of his birth is not known, but his baptism was recorded in the Parish Register of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford on Wednesday, April…
