Welcome
{ to my blog }.
Welcome to my blog.
Thanks for visiting my blog. My hope is to post every 1-2 weeks with a combination of adventure stories, craft/writing posts, book reviews, and other non-boring, exciting content to keep you coming back for more!
Allowing Failure
Parenting needs to come with a rule book. I may have a few college degrees, but a secondary education doesn't prepare you for teenage girls and raising responsible adults. I have a good handle on keeping them well-fed and healthy, and I routinely enforce a good nights...
Picture Books Can Help Conversations With Children Amidst an Atmosphere of Hate
News headlines of hate and people run down in the streets. How do we talk to our children about this? I live in Midwest Iowa in a predominantly white, rural community. I know white privilege, but my goal is to learn, understand, listen and respect everyone equally. In...
Back to School Blues
Ten days and counting until the bus pulls up and whisks the girls away to another year of school. I should be doing cartwheels across the lawn because their bickering and whining will cease, the constant need to entertain will end, and silence can wrap me up like a...
Writing Tips
I compare my writing journey to a blossom striving to bloom into a fabulous flower as I continue to learn. Practice and commitment are the water and sunshine my flowers need to flourish. Over the last five years, I learned an enormous amount of...
Time Management: Balancing a Life of Chaos
One question I am repeatedly asked is: How do you do it? I practice medicine, write novels and picture books, attempt to be supermom (in my own eyes), and...
You’ve Got Dragons, by Kathryn Cave: A Metaphor for Anxiety
Kathryn Cave uses many tools in this picture book to approach anxiety in children. Using a direct address point of view and the word “YOU”, she can talk to an anxious reader with authority. A child with anxiety will empathize with Ben and want to join his journey against the dragons
“Ain’t No Women in the Fish House!” He said. (Boy Was He WRONG.)
Yeah, it happened. I was a teenager in the north woods of Canada holding my bloody filet knife when the old fisherman in the fish house said it. He was dumb enough to insult me when I was armed. I proceeded to clean my walleye with skill, producing filets looking better than theirs. (I’d like to think they stared in awe… but I can’t be sure about that.)
Writing Voice in Fiction: Examining MS. BIXBY’S LAST DAY, by John David Anderson
Voice is one of my favorite craft topics in writing. In order to capture a character’s voice, you need to start with a well-developed character. Your story will change and develop and you need to know how your character’s personality and desires will adapt to every...
Life’s Too Short, Live for the Moment, Stop and Smell the Roses: And other Clichés to Live By
Many questioned my motives and looked at me with crazy eyes when I went back to school for my Masters in Creative Writing for children at forty-something years old. As a successful physician, I should have success, money, and all the comforts I needed – right? NOPE....
Anxiety in Picture Books –– How I Knew Scaredy Squirrel and I Were Soul-Mates
As a physician, I see patients with anxiety every day. Yes – every day, and most of the time I discuss stress, depression or a form of anxiety over 50% of my day in the office. The hardest part is when children are worried or anxious and parents feel helpless to make...