A NEW ADVENTURE

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I seem to have begun a new adventure in writing: life as a political columnist. For the last month and a half, I have been writing articles on almost a weekly basis for The Insider, for People Sheltering in Place. Now I am embarking on a bi-weekly column for The Insider, called “Washington Whispers.” Here are links to my articles so far:

https://www.theinsider1.com/post/can-there-be-truth-without-ruth

https://www.theinsider1.com/post/washington-whispers-democrats-forced-to-grin-and-barrett

https://www.theinsider1.com/post/advice-to-democrats-revenge-is-a-dish-best-served-bold

https://www.theinsider1.com/post/washington-whispers-a-communique-from-the-covid-zone

https://www.theinsider1.com/post/washington-whispers-political-disaster-averted-or-was-it

This adventure began with an opinion I posted on Facebook finding fault with Bob Woodward’s timing for releasing his Trump tapes. An old high school friend, who had developed a long career as an established journalist and editor took issue with my view and I sent her an email discussing further. It turned out that she runs The Insider, for People Sheltering in Place; she asked me to turn my thoughts into an article; and we have been off and running ever since!
Talk about serendipity!

RBG, BOB WOODWARD, AND NOVEL SLICES

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It was a long, dry summer, filled with exhaustion and writing inertia of sorts. For someone who needs connection with the world to stimulate the imagination, sheltering from any possible exposure to COVID19 did not help. But as of this last week, I’ve had some movement. I’ve had two opinion articles published in The Insider within two weeks: Can There Be Truth without Ruth? and Bob Woodward: A Day Late, But Not a Dollar Short. This is a new kind of venue for me, adding journalistic writing to my fiction work. It’s also a chance–especially in these isolating COVID19 days we are living through–to express my views to more than the walls of my apartment. (With the amount of yelling I’ve been doing at those walls, I’m surprised that, like Jericho’s, they have not come tumbling down.)

In addition, yesterday, I received the lovely news that an excerpt of one of my novels is a finalist for a contest conducted by Novel Slices. If the excerpt should win, it would be one of five that will appear in that publication. (I am torn between wanting to celebrate that news and not wanting to jinx myself. ) Here’s hoping!

New Story Out in Anthology, Furious Gravity!

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Photo on 5-18-20 at 2.12 PM(To look at the photo above, I must be on the other side of the Looking Glass! But you all can read backwards, right?)

My story, “In Exile,” came out May 1st in Furious Gravity, the ninth volume of the Grace and Gravity series originally founded by Richard Peabody. The series features stories by DC area women writers. This volume, edited by Melissa Scholes Young, spotlights 50 great stories! I am so pleased that mine is one of them!

To hear a delightful interview conducted by NPR’s Kojo Nnamdi with the anthology’s editor, Melissa Scholes Young, and one of the volume’s writers, Yohanca Delgado, click here.

Furious Gravity, (Grace and Gravity Volume IX) can be purchased from the prestigious Washington DC independent bookstore, Politics And Prose.

 

Tinker’s Damn — Close, But Still No Cigar…

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pride of the tinkers

The road to publication is long and slow even for work that many recognize has worth. In the category of “close but no cigar,” my novel, Tinker’s Damn, was not chosen by Forest Avenue Press for publishing. But Tinker’s Damn DID make it into Forest Avenue Press’s top 20 novels considered for publication during its open reading period, adding to the other affirmations this novel has received, even though it has yet to find a home. (i.e., it was a semi-finalist for the William Faulkner Creative Writing Award for the Novel; an excerpt was published in Ontario Review; and it has been equated with Seamus Heaney’s poetry in Sweeney Astray.)