Blog

I’ve always dreamed of  away to the mountains to write for an extended period of time. The closest I’ve ever come was attending writers’ conferences at Mt. Hermon. Now, I’ve been blessed with the use of a friend’s home in the Santa Cruz Mountains for the past month! A dream come true! I finished the …[ read more ]

What do a ballpoint pen and a stick of a roll-on deodorant have in common? Would you believe the ballpoint pen inspired the roll-on deodorant? The inventors of  roll-on deodorant sticks saw how the newly-invented (1940’s) Biro pen delivered an even flow of ink, and adapted the idea to create an even flow of liquid …[ read more ]

Inspiration: the word “inspiration” comes from the Latin word inspīrāre, which means to breathe upon or into: in + to breathe  (in + spīrāre) . It also means “to fill with an animating, quickening, or exalting influence.” The original idea was that something outside of a person affected them in such a way that it changed them. That’s what I …[ read more ]

When I was younger, I wrote  stories about what I dreamed about at night. As I grew older, I dreamed of writing full-time. Now, I still write what I dream, but my dreams of writing full-time have become a reality! The Bronze Dagger, my middle grade fiction novel about a 12-year-old living in Ancient Mesopotamia, …[ read more ]

A ten-year-old dream will soon become a reality! About ten years ago my husband and I obsessed (okay, only I obsessed) over a 3,000-year-old bronze dagger we saw at an antiquities store. Teaching 6th grade social studies at the time, I imagined showing my students the ancient dagger while teaching them about Hammurabi and Ancient …[ read more ]