Hawaii, Big Island · 2013 August Four swimmers (including me) in black-skinned, neck to toe suits slipped into the inky rolling water. Eight pm. Time to turn on headlights and swim into the sea channel toward the hotel’s ocean lights. The only sounds were the roll of surf, the splash of waves, and the slap…

Guest Post by Nancy Bo Flood on Janet Fox’s Through the Wardrobe blog, April 18, 2013 Nancy Bo Flood, a good friend and talented fellow Vermont College of Fine Arts grad, has a new non-fiction picture book out, Cowboy Up! Ride The Navajo Rodeo, with photographs by Jan Sonnenmair. I invited her to come by and talk…

Tucson was a warm, sunshine filled time of crazy Tucson Book Festival and then quiet being with Bill. We slept a lot, ate amazing foods spiced with a variety of chilies, drifted in the hotel pool like a couple of old lizards. We did a bit of exploring too. We drove up to Kitts Peak…

by Karen Williams in her blog, Williams Writes · January 24, 2013 The internet was new (to me anyway). It was 1993…or 4. We had just returned from Haiti. I was working on a quilt to auction off to raise money for Hospital Albert Schweitzer where we had lived and worked for 2 years. I sent out…

November is American Indian Heritage Month and at The Pirate Tree we begin our celebration with a look at one of the world’s most outstanding and versatile athletes – Jim Thorpe, Sac & Fox (Sauk). Thorpe’s native name is Wa-Tho-Huk, meaning Bright Path, and indeed Thorpe’s courage has blazed new paths for many.

Today my mom is having cataract surgery. “A simple procedure, out-patient, and takes only an hour or so. Afterwards a few days of patching, frequent drops, no lifting heavy objects. Done. She will be able to see nearly normal again.” But it is not a simple procedure, to see again. When our family was on…

Driving Mom home at sunset, we stopped the car by the beach. Near the water’s edge sat an old couple. As the red ball of sun began to slip behind the sea, the husband helped his wife stand up, then put an arm around her. And then the sun was gone. Thursday, June 7, 2012…

But, you may argue, I am writing a nonfiction nature book…or a fantasy…or picture-book biography. It doesn’t matter. If you want your reader to keep turning the pages and at the end, thumb back through the book, your manuscript must have heart. Emotion. Emotion means connection between information, meaning and the reader. In other words,…