Reader & Writer
“Circa 1984”, a flash that was at Switch in 2025 has been nominated for Best of the Net. Switch is available online—devoted to microfiction that strays from the beaten path and carries the reader forward. Submissions are capped at 300 words. “We started Switch in homage to the much beloved ¶, A Magazine of Paragraphs. A hard... Continue Reading →
The podcast I did this past summer, Written in the Stars, at Lansing Community College is now up on YouTube. So if you want to see what I look like when I'm trying to make conversation= It's here!! https://youtu.be/Ef9oLZIRF6I?si=CHBfuEZz500ImXeU
Me Time--is a weird, funny, awkward piece that simply spun from my pen. Wish it could be more dramatic than that. I'm not always sure where ideas come from. There's a tire store called Protege that I pass when riding my bike to Trader Joe's. https://persimmontree.org/fall-2026/me-time/ The piece was accepted in April and is out... Continue Reading →
I’ve started to be a little more intentional about booking seminars (I’m open!) and promoting my Substack and books. Sort of. I was asked recently to be on a podcast, Written in the Stars, put out by Lansing Community College. Thanks for reading Freeze Frame: How to Write Flash Memoir! Subscribe for free to receive new... Continue Reading →
This week as I'm navigating cataract surgery, heat wave, going back to work--I appeared on a local podcast, Written in the Stars, put out by Lansing Community College. I think it went well, except for the coughing fit I succumbed to in the beginning and my phone dinging from notifications. (I'd turned off the ringer... Continue Reading →
Maybe a year ago while out running in the neighborhood, I saw a bus letting students off and a young boy juggling a back pack and instrument case. I kept running. But something stayed with me. I wrote a piece from the perspective of voice messages. I wasn’t sure if it worked and forgot about... Continue Reading →
Intervals (description below*) put out a call for work reflecting places no longer there. Not abandoned, but lost now to time. Erasure. * Intervals is an experiment in call and response—between prompt and reply, between Pictura and its contributors. Each exchange becomes part of a continuing conversation, carried on in the spaces between our regular issues. Hidden Valley... Continue Reading →
So on the way up to Grand Rapids for a writing conference while n the bus, I saw that I got an acceptance. Great! It was for a flash I'd written awhile back and then largely forgot about. Then while out running, I remembered it at exactly the same place in the run that I... Continue Reading →
I've started a new series--you still have time to catch up--at my Freeze Frame Substack based upon my own self-doubts about being a writer. Writer. Gardener. Grandmother. While still working another job. You see, like most of us, writer is just a fraction of my life, while taking up a lot of my time. It's... Continue Reading →
Check out a new piece at Wild Greens Magazine. https://www.wildgreensmagazine.com/archive/april-2026-vi-vi#h.z2znarx3yh0i I'd had the shorty in my portfolio for almost 2 years and it finally found a home in an issue of Wild Greens with a theme of transportation. It's LOOSELY based upon a real persona nd a real incident, none of which happened at the... Continue Reading →
Actually this piece has BEEN out. I just didn’t know it. Someone at work was asking about my new book, Woman of a Certain Age, a story collection, and I said let me show you my website. I googled my name and up popped the piece, published online in Third Wednesday. Okay, that’s a surprise.... Continue Reading →
