English as an uncommon language, Part I
It has been said that the Americans and British are separated by a common language. One could argue that all English-speaking countries and peoples are separated by that not so common language. One area of differences centers around accent, dialect, and country idioms, and those differences are both large and small. (I’ll talk about other differences […]
Retirement Day 1
Or perhaps I should say “evening 1.” After working full-time for decades, I left work at the end of the afternoon for the last time. I have felt strange for days and I anticipate feeling equally strange tomorrow morning when I wake to others preparing to go to work and I have the entire day […]
Pet Grammatical Peeves
We all have them—pet grammatical peeves. We see them or hear them and it’s exactly like fingernails on a blackboard, an itch you can’t scratch, being on the verge of a sneeze that won’t come but won’t go away. Consider these: “15 items or less” (although I should give my thanks to Trader Joe’s; their […]
Sumer is Icumen in — along with Summer Conference Season
Summer is such a great time for renewal, re-creation, and expanding horizons. As a writer, I can tell it’s time for summer because emails and snail mails about summer conferences flow in, enticing me with their subjects and tantalizing me with the wonderful presenters/workshop leaders. Of course, there are expenses—registration, lodging, flights, meals, incidentals—and there […]
San Francisco Writers Conference
I just attended the SF Writers Conference for 2018 and it was fabulous. There were multiple tracks for fiction writers, non-fiction writers, memoir writers, poets, self-publishers, marketers—something for everyone. For poets, one highlight was the keynote speech by Dana Goia, current poet laureate of California. He spoke eloquently about creation and read a few poems. […]