Stringing Beads

In 1993 two friends had a dream.  Anne Kelleher (Bush) and Lorraine Stanton sought to form a group in the Lehigh Valley for writers who shared the goal of writing and publishing book length fiction.  The first meetings of the Greater Lehigh Valley Fiction Writers’ Group (GLVFWG) were held in Lorrain

As readers, we all have favorite books.  They are the stories we can’t bear to part with, ones that live on in our memories.  The books we’d keep on our shelves forever, if such a thing were possible.  Years may pass but their presence lets us know there is a wondrous volume just waiting for [...]

I met him the day after Christmas.  He was a college student visiting a close friend of his, my roommate’s fiancé.  From our first meeting we were drawn together.  Soul mates.  We wrote letters.   We telephoned.  In those pre-Internet days, over an 80 mile distance, we courted. And we fell in love.

Among the family treasures Mom left behind were packets of her personal letters.  The earliest ones were written to her parents in the months after she divorced my father.  My brother was four; I was a toddler.  Mom was preparing to marry again.  Her new marriage would take her over a thousand miles

As we gather to celebrate this Thanksgiving Day, let’s each take time to reminisce on holidays past, and those blessings yet to come.  Finally, may we rejoice and be grateful for the good in our lives today. May you and your loved ones enjoy a peaceful, memorable Thanksgiving. Happy Turkey Day to al

Wikipedia defines a vanity press as “a publishing house that publishes books at the author’s expense.” The term vanity is apt.  A book from a vanity press is most commonly born from a writer’s need to be published, whatever the cost. There are no gatekeepers at a vanity press. The only limits are th

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” – Alan Watts On Saturday, October 29th, those of us living on the U.S. East Coast were pummeled with a pre-Halloween storm. “A fifty-year storm,” one weatherman called it. By early evening over a [...]

This weekend I’m attending the Put Your Heart in a Book writers’ conference sponsored by the New Jersey Romance Writers.  Three hundred plus writers, agents, and editors are gathering to celebrate writing. It’s a much anticipated, much loved regional conference. Many arrived Thursday to hit the grou

That whisper you keep hearing is the universe trying to get your attention.    ~Oprah Winfrey The past months have been crazy-busy.  While trying to keep current with day-to-day tasks at my office day job, I’ve had new projects and programs to learn.  At home I’ve been writing steadily, preparing my

Most bloggers crave readers.   They pounce on reader comments faster than a hot, homemade Toll House cookie just pulled from the oven.  Well, some of us do anyway.  Two weeks ago in Successful Blogging I spoke of social media and ways to draw more readers.  But how does someone start?  How do we add