This past weekend I traveled through southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas, visiting places of historical and recent significance. We moved from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR, to the Walmart Visitors Center, also in Bentonville, to the nearby Pea Ridge National Military Park (a Civil War battlefield), […]
Continue readingStory is Everywhere; You Control It
If you want to have an impact on people, you need to tell them a story. For years, I read articles in the American Bar Association publication ABA Journal on trial practice and the importance of advocates telling their client’s story to the jury. But recently, the importance of telling […]
Continue readingCatalpa: Fine Dining in Arrow Rock, MO
On Monday, I wrote about the Oregon Trail emigrants choosing their leaders on the Kansas and Nebraska prairies. This post back-tracks to Arrow Rock, Missouri, where my first Oregon Trail novel begins. And today’s post is about a superb meal I had in Arrow Rock in 2012 – 165 years […]
Continue readingOrder on the Trail: The Governance of Wagon Trains
By mid-May, the emigrants to Oregon in the 1840s had settled into a routine. They were past the frontier towns and out on the open prairie. Greenhorns without experience driving oxen and mules had learned to manage their teams. Wives who had never cooked on an open fire had figured […]
Continue readingHow To Write Three-Dimensional Characters — Advice from Steven James
I was fortunate to attend the Oklahoma Writers Federation Inc. conference this past weekend. The keynote speaker was Steven James, author of more than thirty books. He was a funny and engaging keynote speaker, who talked about rejection letters writers receive and the need to write and re-write until your […]
Continue readingHappy Mother’s Day to My Mother, the Writer
I spent the first thirty years of my life trying not to be like my mother. But around my 30th birthday, the realization dawned that, however much I protested, we are in many ways quite similar. My mother was valedictorian of her high school class and a Phi Beta Kappa […]
Continue readingGold Stories of Today and Yesterday
I read the newspaper differently now because I write historical fiction. Articles that I once would have skipped over intrigue me because of their connection to what I write. On April 30, the Wall Street Journal carried a piece on gold mining in the riverbeds of California. The novel I am currently […]
Continue readingDoing What I Do Best — Procrastinating
In 2003, my work group had just completed the Gallup employee engagement survey. One of the questions on the Gallup survey is “Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?” Well, then, we asked, what does each of us do best? Of course, Gallup had […]
Continue reading“Family Recipe” — a good Mother’s Day present
If you’re looking for a small Mother’s Day present, try my book “Family Recipe: Sweet and saucy stories, essays, and poems about family life.” Click here for links to where you can buy it. Enjoy! And Happy Mother’s Day.
Continue readingTake the Plunge! Start a Journal
“The only way to start is just to start – take the plunge.” With these words, I started keeping a journal ten years ago this spring. I’d had a diary when I was a girl, one of those pink books with the gilt edges and cheap metal lock. But I […]
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