Nothing refreshes my soul like time spent in the mountains. The pungent scent of pines and sagebrush on the breeze … the majesty of granite peaks soaring into the sapphire sky … the utter silence of a mountain meadow … the sense that ghosts of mountain men still roam the forested mountainsides. A peace descends, a calm envelopes. 

 One of my favorite places, particularly in autumn, is nearby Yellowstone. Dawn on the Madison River is unforgettable. The hazy early…

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IndieReader Discovery Awards

   I received the exciting news that I was a named a Winner in the Environment Category at the IndieReader Discovery Awards held at the Javits Center in New York City. What an exciting day this has been for me!!!

My little book ~ Maria's Duck Tales: Wildlife Stories From My Garden ~ has taken me on quite an exciting journey!!! Late last night, I learned that my book was named a Finalist in two categories for the 2012 International Book Awards: "Animals/Pets General" and "E-Book: Autobiography/Biography/Memoirs" ... Yea!!! Javits Center, here I come!!!

Yea!!! Just received the news ... I made the cut and my book - "Maria's Duck Tales: Wildlife Stories From My Garden" is a finalist in the IndieReader Discovery Awards!!! It also received 5-Stars and the review will be posted this week!


http://indiereader.com/2012/05/indiereader-discovery-awards-top-titles-to-date/

Husband Joe is the grill-meister. He makes an enviable grilled Bourbon salmon, barbecued chicken, and melt-in-your-mouth T-bone (and I’m not a steak-lover). Even his blackened hot dogs are incredible – my mom was Joe’s biggest grilled hot dog fan! There is literally nothing that he can’t grill to…

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As promised, as an addition to my Bonanza today, a repost from Julie Hammonds.  Her blog: Words4Wildlife: Notes from the field.

 

I worked on a piece of writing over the past weekend. It was the first new writing I’ve done, of any substance,…

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Poets for Living Waters is a poetry action in response to the Gulf Oil Disaster of April 20, 2010, one of the most profound man-made ecological catastrophes in history. Former US poet laureate Robert Pinsky describes the popularity of poetry after 9/11 as a turn away from the disaster’s overwhelming enormity to a more manageable individual scale. As we confront the magnitude of this… Continue

I haven’t been blogging the last few weeks because I have been working diligently on completing the rough draft of my next Mac Faraday Mystery, Old Loves Die Hard (working title) while recovering from my gallbladder surgery. Now comes the hard part. Revising and editing.



One of the most gratifying feelings in writing is finishing the first draft. It’s like child birth. There’s the pregnancy where everything comes together. Then there is the getting it out. That’s the rough… Continue