By 1918, Europe had spent over four years embroiled in the Great War. This terrible war to end all wars had consumed an endless stream of men—all shot, gassed, or obliterated by artillery in the trenches. Dieter, a German farmer,…

In addition to being May Day and National Chocolate Parfait Day, May 1st is also Mother Goose Day. Huzzah! I loved Mother Goose rhymes as a child, and I used them a lot when I taught kindergarten and first grade.…

GDPR (the UK’s General Data Protection Regulation) has created some new requirements for bloggers and authors with mailing lists. I’m doing my best to comply, and publicly posting my privacy policy is part of that. So, here goes. I’ll give…

Now this is a holiday I can get into–it ranks right up there with Tell a Fairy Tale Day in my book. It was chosen because it was on this very day, March 25th, that Frodo dropped the ring into…

Back in the late seventies and throughout the eighties, fantasy was dominated by stories written in the tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien. Some darker stories were certainly published, but what I loved most about the genre were the endless permutations of…

Today, February 26th, is National Tell a Fairy Tale Day! I was delighted to learn that fairy tales had their own holiday, and for once, Murphy’s Law didn’t trip me up. Normally, I’d find out about this sort of thing…

Success–how do you define it? It seems like an important question to me. Otherwise, a person can succeed and not even know it. Growing up, I knew people like that–never satisfied, always wanting more–to the point that they could never…

For me, like for so many others, with each January comes resolutions. I normally try to keep my modifications small—walking or gardening three times a week, take a vitamin every day…that sort of thing. My main resolution this year is…