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I’m super excited that my book, Footfalls to the Alamo was selected to be a part of the Texas Word Wrangler Book Festival! This year, the festival runs September 27th through September 28th at the Giddings Public Library and Cultural Center in one of my favorite small towns: Giddings, Texas! Seventy three authors submitted applications,…

(Bacteria under the microscope. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock) “Viruses are stealthy predators; they cause infections by entering and multiplying inside the host’s healthy cells. Bacteria are warriors; they are single cells that can survive on their own, inside or outside the body. In the 1800’s it was difficult to know what caused a person’s illness…

I’ve been meeting with small book groups to read and discuss Footfalls to the Alamo since last December. I can’t tell you how inspiring it is to meet with people who enjoy reading about Texas history as much as I do.  It’s certainly complicated! At a recent book talk, one woman said something like, “This…

This year is not a leap year, so February has its signature twenty eight days. Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere often consider this the final month of winter, though climate change may cause reconsideration of this at some point. Often the subject of love comes up, most certainly on account of Valentines Day…

This morning I read an interesting Bloomberg article entitled “Twelve Rules for Life” by Megan McArdle. I was surprised to see it because these sorts of articles and lists usually appear in January as folks are composing their New Years Resolutions, even if they don’t get past number one, and even if that one exists…

My writing teacher loved you. Well, especially: “M&M faced ragsters jumbling pell-mell into a faded pink station wagon at dawn.” A morning of summer blueberry picking was what it was all about. Donning belts to hold buckets to hold berries freshly plucked from their limbs. Later, somewhere in the field, a radio blared Diana Ross…

Rafters loom large between rusty nails. A small raccoon peers out diamond at roof’s gable. Ladder, missing rungs of course, stands ready. Pine wood, walnut casings, large barrel stuffed with radio parts, Mr. Bowles, struck dead by a mail truck on Henry Street, left treasures up there. Sleepovers, flashlights, sleeping bags, pillows, Tiger Beat magazine.…

Is there ever a good mourning? Recently my mother passed away followed the next month by my mother-in-law. Two very different, loving women whose nine decades were filled to the brim with what mattered most to each of them, and family was right up there. The Covid19 pandemic altered the way in which we were…

A thick, deliciously dense and ferny woods beckoned behind our house when I was young. This other world presented itself next to a small white church, obscured behind a few modest homes in our gritty working class neighborhood. Beechnut, pine, ferns, moss, and decaying wood all sent up a heady amalgam of musty scents easily…