Kinder Garden

  • The Author is Back

    All right, I admit it, it’s been a long couple of under-productive years. Even though things are open, back to “normal”, there is a lingering fog of post-lockdown effect. It makes me sluggish, anti-social, lazy. After a lengthy lethargy, I seem to have found an antidote. What the cowbell is to a fever, the Pretzel

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  • Writers Inspire

    Writers Inspire

    I attended a very good friend’s Book Launch yesterday. It was a wonderful event in a terrific location celebrating a great accomplishment. Seeing the fruits of her labors, experiencing the accolades of friends and family, readers and writers, it was the most feel-good I’ve been exposed to in a long time. And it inspires me

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  • Is it Chilly in here or is that just a Draft?

    It’s a spectacular feeling to get through an entire story idea.Beginning, middle, and end, BOOM! written down.I have many partial first drafts.Many. It’s very drafty in here. Brrrr. (a little writer’s humor that might be funnier if I didn’t live in frigid Northern Illinois) I recently returned from a very successful writer’s retreat where I

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  • I woke up this morning with a great idea for a new novel…

    Just kidding. IT’S REAL LIFE! As a fiction author who has dabbled with post-apocalyptic and dystopian themes, I am both fascinated and freaked out. Which is fascinating in its own way. You just can’t do this kind of research from a distance. You can Google potential, you can imagine and expound based on limited personal

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  • The value of X

    The value of X

    We’re in the final stages of The Writer’s Alphabet… and I’m x-static to introduce the letter X. X-ing out is an important (and sometimes painful) part of the editing process. No matter how poetic the verse, exceptional the passage, or lovely the prose, sometimes it’s just gotta go! For letters A through W in The Writer’s

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  • IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!

    Happy Birthday to me! For those of you who have the day off work (teachers and mail carriers, mostly), YOU’RE WELCOME! I encourage you to eat cake today. I’ll be eating cake, and even though we’re far apart, it will be kind of like we are together.           No presents, please.

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  • Yours Truly

    Yours Truly

    The month of June got away from me and I was ill-prepared for (forgot about) my June Literary Mary Chats interview.  So guess what? It’s ME! I’m last month’s guest. 🙂 Mary Lamphere, co-founder of In Print Professional Writers’ Organization, writes poetry, novels, short stories, and her Monday blog. A best-selling, award-winning, and multi-published author,

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  • A Literary Loss

    Kindle Worlds, a publication platform where authors could choose a licensed World, write their own story in that world with the author’s permission (and encouragement), then publish with Amazon to be available through Kindle for purchase and download, will be no more. I am crushed. In the midst of promoting the book I just published,

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  • Reviews

    Reviews

    Word of mouth is best, but since I’m only up to the letter R in The Writer’s Alphabet, today we’re going to focus on REVIEWS. I just released my latest novel, A Stranger’s Child, and the feedback I have received is phenomenal (THANK YOU!). But see, the thing is, I’ve already read it. I need

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  • Want, Need, Wear, Read

    Want, Need, Wear, Read

    Ah, Christmastime… That wonderful season of joy, smiles, and giving. Giving?! You know it. It’s not about the carols and cookies, the cyber sales and Santa, the Hallmark movies and holiday mania. It’s not about the things you want to GET. It’s more about the things you want to GIVE. Wanting to give is one

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