Now that winter’s over for residents of the Mountain State (It is over, right?) I’m coming home. I think John Denver said it best. “Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong, West Virginia, Mountain mama, take me home, country roads.” I left West Virginia in the middle Read more…
Which story shall I tell you first? The one about how I almost broke my neck taking a tumble from the balcony onto the theatre seats below? Or how it felt to peer up at the underbelly of a jet airplane performing a very low-altitude landing few feet above my Read more…
Three weeks ago I was preparing for vacation when my daughter Courtney dropped by. She had agreed to watch my baby while I was gone. “I’ll keep her in my office,” she said. “There’s no other animals in there, so she’ll be fine.” Trilogy is almost two. I fell in Read more…
We live at a time where one might wonder if books are going the way of the dinosaur. Not because there’s a shortage—I can’t imagine when there was ever more of a book glut than now—but because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to eek out a living writing them. I’ve heard Read more…
Pat Benatar, or her songwriter, really got it right. It is a war out there, and people in love are on the front lines. Like wounded soldiers, thousands fall every day, bloody and bruised. Unable to get back up. People in relationships where love is alive take bullets for their Read more…
After promising my readers not one but two books—Lethal Silence and To Shatter the Silence—by February 2013, and failing to deliver either book, I fear I’ve lost my credibility. So it’s time to come clean. I should confess: I did just finish one book, but it wasn’t either of those Read more…
I left Oakland, California, on Sunday, March 10, for Honolulu, Hawai’i. Not piloting a plane—I wish!—but as a passenger aboard a Boeing 737. When I returned Wednesday night, flying from HNL to OAK, I realized we were following the same route Amelia Earhart had in 1935. That’s when she became Read more…
The best thing I can tell you is to get to know the locals. They’re key to enjoying yourself while working away from home. This trip has been in the works for almost a year, after I was invited to speak at the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma’s annual Read more…
Note: Please watch this accurate and moving Youtube video a volunteer created about Courtney’s work at the PCAS and her love for the animals there. It will inspire you! My daughter was fired from her job as manager of the Preston County Animal Shelter tonight, after commissioners got into a Read more…
My husband could have died Monday morning. He didn’t, but he could have. With a blood sugar level of 37, that number was very near diabetic seizure or stroke range Because I was sick Sunday, Butch made his own dinner—canned soup—after spending the entire afternoon cleaning out the garage. At Read more…