Hey everyone, it was suggested that I do videos of readings for my published pieces, which is super fun! Enjoy!
Month: September 2024
Sunday’s Snapshots: Tantrums vs Meltdowns
There’ve been some interesting conversations on Facebook about my most recent Snapshots column, which you can read here. People find both terms dismissive and/or invalidating. I have yet to hear a term that isn’t one of those though and I haven’t come up with my own word that works. The main point here, the thing I’m really hoping to relate, is that it doesn’t matter what you call them, what matters is your reaction: do you provide empathy or do you chastise?
Frankenstein’s Garden
My piece, Frankenstein’s Garden, has been published in GreenPrints (now Food Gardening Network), sort of…but that’s another story. Enjoy it here.
Whatcha Readin’: Flashlights & Firelight Book Club
Every month, I post a column in The Sanders County Ledger about the best books I read the previous month. Here is last months article: https://www.scledger.net/story/2024/09/05/opinion/whatcha-readin-flashlights-and-firelight-book-club/11246.html Enjoy!
Also, if you’re interested in purchasing any of these books, I’ve made a handy list you can purchase from here: https://bookshop.org/lists/august-2024-sunday-dutro/ I receive a teeny tiny kickback if you purchase from my list AND you support independent book stores YEAH!
TFPL Book Talk: The Measure by Nikki Erlick
In collaboration with my monthly column, Whatcha Readin’, in The Sanders County Ledger, my local Thompson Falls Public Library lets me do a monthly short video of a book I liked reading the month before. This months book is The Measure by Nikki Erlick (which is also the book for our first ever Flashlights & Firelight Online Book Club meeting! Join us to discuss on September 18, 2024) Enjoy the video and join me on Zoom in a couple weeks to discuss your thoughts!
Writing Prompt Winner: Janet Muirhead Hill
August 2024: Janet Muirhead Hill
“her bell tinkles”
Waking from a dream, she wondered if the sound was coming from the lovely fairy she’d met in a luscious garden near a bubbling spring. Uh, no. She was awake now, yet the sound persisted. A door bell? In her groggy state she wasn’t even sure she had one. Then she remembered. She didn’t, but she wasn’t home. This bed was not her own, but the narrow one in her daughter’s guest room. Who would be at the door at this hour? Why didn’t her daughter answer it. She looked at the time on her phone, which she had slipped under her pillow. 10 am. Her daughter was at work. She was here by herself. How ironic. Because her daughter had said after the episode that took her to ER, “I don’t want you going home to your house. You’re all alone there.” Well, yeah. She got out of bed, straightened her pajamas and made it to the door. “Hi, I am the nurse your daughter hired to look after you. May I come in.” Oh that girl. She’s forgotten how much I enjoy my solitude.
Hill writes from her rural Montana home which she shares with her husband, two cats, and two ponies. She writes for the joy of writing as she learns about life and herself through the characters in her novels and in the random poetry she occasionally pens. www.janetmuirheadhill.com
Monthly Writing Prompt: September 2024
It can be hard to get going sometimes, and a writing prompt can help! Once a month, I post a five-minute timed writing prompt. You’re given a quote from something I’m reading, and you respond for five minutes. There’s no stopping, correcting, editing, nothing…just write. For five minutes. The prompt does not have to feature in your writing at all, it is simply a springboard. Where does the prompt take you? Write it out.
If you are a paid Patreon supporter, send me your response and your short bio when you’re done for a chance to win the monthly contest. Winners are featured on all my socials/website/newsletter. You never know where five minutes could lead….
For the current monthly writing prompt, please visit Patreon.
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