My mother, Anne, was the Queen of Courage in my life – a graceful, gracious and tough lady, especially when faced with adversity. The Finns have the perfect word for her kind of toughness – sisu – which describes determination and perseverance when faced with adversity. My mom had sisu up the wazoo. That’s why I …

Following Your Heart to a Life of Joy and Fulfillment In a compilation of 16 essays, Do What You Love by Henri Junttila leads the reader step-by-step to an understanding of what can happen when we begin to be aware of – and listen to – our inner wisdom. This is not a new concept for most of …

Stephen King on the Art, Craft and Business of Writing On Writing is the first Stephen King book I’ve ever read. It’s an excellent memoir of his life as a writer: what got him started, how he built his writing portfolio, and how his stories evolved, through vivid imagination and astute editing. But I’ve never read …

My book review of Dinty W. Moore’s Crafting the Personal Essay In my investigation of “alternative” styles of writing, including everything “flash,” I came across a book edited by Dinty W. Moore called The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction. I was impressed with Moore’s introduction to that publication, so I  bought Crafting the Personal Essay, which …

My Review of It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure I’m a (pre) baby-boomer and, last spring as I approached my 69th birthday, I got a little nostalgic and started looking up books on memoir writing. Not that I wanted to write an actual book about my life story, …