An American Marriage by Tayari Jones is a highly lauded novel that has won awards and accolades from Oprah, NPR, New York Times, USA Today, People magazine and the Washington Post. Even my hero Barack Obama said the book is “A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.”…
Today is Day Six on this holiday journey and I’ve learned so many lessons already. I’ll call the first Cruising 101. While I realize many/most of you have likely been on cruises before, there were some fine points I learned following serious research and advice from friends and my travel agent. My six-day-long lesson was…
While it seems like I’ve been AWOL this past month, since I returned from Oklahoma, I’ve actually been very busy with National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is a friendly competition to write an entire novel in 30 days. Because I’d completed an outline and most of my research before November 1, I was able to…
We are well into the cold and, occasionally, snowy days of November. It’s Thanksgiving month and Veterans Day has just passed. One group has found the ideal way to thank a veteran by covering them with comforting and healing Quilts of Valor. The local chapter of the national and international Quilts of Valor Foundation chartered…
Historical fiction strikes my fancy only when the history is far removed from my own lifetime. The 1960s and ‘70s aren’t that far behind for someone just starting their 60th spin around the sun. And so, learning for the first time about an adoption scandal that rocked this country’s sensibilities in the 1940s was not…
The zero in the title is for “no new information.” A bad way to end my first big series of travel blog posts. Today’s final day on the trail certainly didn’t go as planned. In fact, my interviews with two VERY accomplished Native American women didn’t GO anywhere, due to lack of planning on my…
It seems appropriate I would end my recreation of the Ponca Trail of Tears at the sites of Standing Bear’s imprisonment and trial in Omaha. While I have some last-minute connections to make tomorrow in Lincoln, this will be my last full day on the trail. Today I followed the Standing Bear saga to Fort…
Add Amtrak to my favorite list of A words
I boarded my first Amtrak at 10:10a PT Friday in Los Angeles, but my trip didn’t really begin until a couple hours later when I surmised the observation car, three coaches ahead, was the place to be. Now that I’ve spent 36 hours on board the Coast Starlight Train #14, I’ve learned about 36 not-so-secret…
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