My Life with Bruce Springsteen

My Life with Bruce Springsteen

During Christmas break in the winter of 1977, my flock of the high school girlfriends reunited at Ann Lynch’s house to talk about our freshman year college experiences: the classes, the boys, the dorms. Ann, a double Latin and Biology major, always a quiet and...
Rooting for the Criminal

Rooting for the Criminal

I was fifteen years old when I saw the movie, The Day of the Jackal, based on the novel by Frederick Forsyth. The plot detailed an attempted assassination of Charles DeGalle in 1962. I found myself rooting for the criminal, a good-looking guy in a James Bond sort of...
The Cutter’s Widow

The Cutter’s Widow

Grief Ella is a newlywed, living and working in Saint Paul, MN in 1915.  She had her husband work at a shirtwaist factory that mass-produces women’s work blouses. Connor works as a cutter and Ella is part of the sewing-line brigade.  A cutter stacks multiple layers of...
Overcoming Writer’s Block

Overcoming Writer’s Block

Overcoming Writer’s Block Are you telling everyone you are starting a new writing project but have nothing to show? In the middle of your novel, short story, screenplay but find you have hit the wall? Would you rather clean out the cat litter box than write? Do you...
The Writer’s Notebook

The Writer’s Notebook

The Writer’s Notebook When I was in my undergraduate program at The College of St. Catherine, my writer professor, Jonis Agee, recommended keep a writer’s notebook. This was a simple take-it-with-you pad to record items. In the days before Pinterest, this was a way to...