planted 140 daffodil bulbs
published a novel
established a garden with an old cot as a trellis for the passion vine to attract butterflies
published an audio book (this is NOT double counting; the audio book was damn hard)
launched a podcast (which fizzled, but this post isn’t about failures of 2018)
made a diorama...
After 3 WEEKS of being sick, I’m feeling better and lifting my head to realize Christmas is barreling down the calendar. So up went the improv nativity
What you do when you’ve relocated cities without your nativity set: you scrounge from your home altar and make your own nativity, complete with black chicken soap, green bunny,...
This fall, I got back into the submission game (no, this isn’t a sex post). My head has been buried in novels for so long, my submitting of shorter work fell off the cliff. Something clicked, and I wanted to re-up. But I wanted to do it differently this time.
I wanted newer, more interesting journals. Less staid grandfathers of literary...
Books written by my grandmother’s grandmother, Ellen Hebron
In my recent blog post I detailed how many, many writing classes I’ve taken and shared the best writing advice I’ve gotten. If you haven’t read it, jump over there and take a look. Be sure to look at the comments where others have offered their advice too. Today,...
I spent eight years assisting those who were experiencing homelessness to get their voices into the world. So I am acutely aware that in my short story, The Yellow Line, I am writing in the voice of a woman whose experiences I cannot actually know. But Leroy Scott, one of the authors of Writing Our Way Home: A Group Journey Out of Homelessness,...
He stopped me in the stairwell of the yellow brick church on Monroe. It was our first session of the Door of Hope Writing Group held at the church. The church was temporary. We’d moved there from the backyard of Manna House where I teetered across the gravel in my high heels and June Averyt flung out her arm and said, “This is Ellen...
In 2001, I quit practicing law and decided to learn to write. That was 17 years ago. I’ve taken all kinds of writing instruction—continuing ed at local colleges. Audited classes in real MFA programs. Writing conferences in town, out of town, and out of state. Day workshops, weekend workshops, week-long workshops, and one marathon 16 day...