I’m spending five days in the Richmond, VA area on a self-designed research and writing retreat. Both my protagonist and the emerging country into which she was conscripted began to shape their destinies here. My novel is historical fiction, and I want to be true to the history that forms the core of the creation. […]
I am stepping away from my usual themes today to honor my husband, whom I recently lost–in flesh, but not in spirit. Willem Zeger Offerman (Will), age 72, passed away from COPD-related pneumonia in Salem, Virginia, on April 29, 2021. “That’s like looking a cow in the rear end!” is what he would probably think […]
Last week I received the new book of poetry, Free Papers, by my friend, Mary Moore Easter. In poetry that grips and won’t let go, she chronicles the path to freedom of Eliza Winston, a woman enslaved in Mississippi. It is a wrenching story of heartbreak and persistence. Eliza’s grit and determination to win the […]
You may be wondering about the title. I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything close to what you might be thinking. It’s one of my mother’s colorful expressions. In common usage the phrase would be spoken “Have MERcy”, and would be a supplication. My mother, Ella, on the other hand, would say “HAAVE mercy!”, with “Haave” […]
I took the plunge last week and signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) 2020. My goal is to finish revising the first draft of my novel, Destiny Reclaimed (working title). With the help of my astute, compassionate, and generous critique group, I have already made considerable progress, and have learned a lot about […]
No, I am not paraphrasing a current racist political dog whistle. I am offering a commentary on it. The title of this post is in fact the title of a poem by a well-known African American poet, Langston Hughes. He wrote it in 1935 (!). In a recent conversation with my daughter, Tara, the Busboys […]
I love words. It’s fun and challenging to choose the perfect one for the situation–my brain is like a quivering mouth salivating in front of a sumptuous buffet and deciding whether to take scalloped, roasted, or Duchesse potatoes–or maybe go in a different direction and take the Belgian endive. The right word enables descriptive, concise, […]
“that his justice cannot sleep forever….” The phrase entices one to wonder, when? When will it be that God will wake his sleeping justice and unleash it on this nation? How loud and terrifying a clamor must His justice raise, what kind of ‘terrible swift sword’ must it wield to make Americans right the wrongs […]
The winding road of my journey to conceive, research, and write my novel, Destiny Reclaimed, led me to the wondrous Kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa. The Fon people, who inhabited the kingdom, had a rich culture. Their history, customs, beliefs, and characters present a garden of outrageous blossoms to seed a writer’s imagination. One […]
I am a member of two writing critique groups – one, a subset of the larger group, is composed of five aspiring novelists. Both groups meet twice monthly to read each others’ work and offer feedback. The experience is immensely helpful in my journey to become a writer. For our last two meetings I was […]
The Plot Thickens 