When Characters Come Calling

I met a boy the other day. His name is Peter. He’s about 9 years old. He has a sister named Sam, and a mom and dad. He’s cautious, smart, quiet, wise. He reminds me a lot of my nephew. He loves science and he’s going to discover the great world of bugs this summer. He will learn that life […]

By Design: Book Review (ish)

Almost a year ago I began working with Dr. Martha MacCullough, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Cairn University to shape her manuscript on educational philosophy into a book. I learned a lot about the editing process, educational philosophy, page layout, and the awesome name pairings of educational scholars (seriously, “Chubb and Moe”? “Long and Frye”? “Bigge and Shermis”? I came to […]

The Blind Writer

I had a professor once who said, “The writer is the one who points and says, ‘Look.’” I’ve internalized that idea so deeply that I can no longer recall who said it – the words are now mine, and I repeat them from time to time when I’m called upon to say what it is I do – I point. […]

Slow Burn

It’s been a long autumn this year. The colors have passed their peak (evidenced, if by nothing else, by the fact that I could barely see the lines in the parking lot at work this morning for the carpet of yellow that covered them), but only just, and they began weeks and weeks ago. I saw a flaming maple in […]

A Little Bit of You

I’ve been attending a writer’s conference for the past few days and have founds some really helpful tools and met some really interesting people. There’s been encouragement; there’s been frustration; there’s been review; there’s been new material. In all, a positive experience. A few thoughts and things I’ve learned: 1. Put a little bit of you into every character you […]

Paper

Of late, my “blog” posts have rarely made it off of the paper they often are started on. In the few moments when I actually sit still without a task in the week, I find myself thinking (which to me, means writing), and I’m rarely in front of the computer screen at those moments. That’s the whole point of those […]