Quick Tip: Tailor Your Responses
Today’s quick tip was inspired by something Tallulah Willis said about her father, Bruce. As those who’ve spent any time with people living with dementia know, each day is never the same. Sometimes, our loved ones will be chatty; other times, they refuse to speak. Some days involve plenty of smiles and the next day…
Read MoreFlipping the Script: An Interview with Kimberly McMillan
Author Kimberly McMillan knows how to write enjoyable, relatable, and heartfelt fiction. Her debut novel, Never Enough Time, launched in early 2023 with Warren Publishing, and readers have used all three adjectives to describe the novel. Other readers praise different attributes. One Goodreads reviewer wrote, “I love stories like [this]—stories that have flawed characters who…
Read MoreQuick Tip: Walk Away
One question I get asked fairly often about The Weight We Carry is whether or not I have personal experience with dementia. Why yes, yes I do. My maternal grandmother had Alzheimer’s, my mother had Alzheimer’s, and my father has vascular dementia. I’m choosing to ignore what might be in my future at the moment…
Read MoreHelping Other People: An Interview with Rishikesh Upadhyay
Plants, their survival, and climate change have always fascinated me, so I’m looking forward to reading The Life of Plants in a Changing Environment by Rishikesh Upadhyay. The book released in July 2022, and though it is Rishikesh’s fourth book, he says he’s been writing and preparing for years and loves “sharing his stories with the…
Read MoreDrawing on Feelings: An Interview with Stephen and Mary Weller
It’s rare that I feature two people at a time in these interviews, but today is one of those days. Stephen and Mary Weller are partners in both life and in writing. Married with “kids, pets, and a mortgage” for many years, they’re coauthors of the first two books in the Kantara Scrolls Series with…
Read MoreFinding That Right Balance: An Interview with DJ Hicks
One of my favorite types of people to showcase in this forum are the emerging authors, and DJ Hicks falls into that category. Though he’s just celebrated the one-year anniversary of his debut, First-Name Basis, the book was the “first (official) project” to make it from his head to the page thanks in part to…
Read MoreCreating Her Own Worlds: An Interview with Helen Garraway
Author Helen Garraway and I might write in different genres, but we certainly have (at least) two things in common: both of us inherited our love of reading from our mothers, and we started writing somewhat late in the game. Despite her delayed start, Helen is doing something exactly right: she’s an award-winning and USA…
Read MoreSixteen (Wild and Precious, Part III)
Dear Melina, I got back from a long run the other day and was standing in the shower when I realized that the end of June was upon us and I hadn’t started your birthday letter yet. So, like last year, it was another “Holy shit!” moment. (For real, my dear. I said it out…
Read MorePromoting Understanding and Awareness: An Interview with Lexi Andresen Lutz
Knowledge is power, and we can all learn something from experiences that differ from ours. Lexi Andresen Lutz hopes to help others with that learning process. She is the author of All Mixed Up: Discovering the Beauty in Racial Ambiguity, a memoir released in 2023. The book “delves into the complexities of navigating different cultural…
Read MoreWriting Prompt: World Social Media Day
Blogging used to be the first thing I did each day. Putting words on the page, many of them as a way to ease my soul or work through whatever was spinning inside my head. Now, I still write for those reasons, but most of my words end up in a book or essay. That’s…
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