An English professor of my acquaintance was teaching a freshmen class on a day that fell on Halloween. She assumed that surely the students would dress for the occasion. And so she rigged out in witch regalia, including silver mask and tall blue diaphanous cone hat. None of the students dressed up. She swears that […] Read More

Standing in line at lunch today at one of the hip green lite fast-food places called Evo’s, waiting for my low-fat chocolate shake, I picked up one of their hip magazines, Paste, which carries the slogan: “Signs of Life in Music, Film, and Culture.” “African Queen” was the story I started browsing, and then seriously […] Read More

Do you have your Halloween costume yet? I found mine by happy accident a couple weeks ago at a local Goodwill. I’d already been invited to a party. And then a few days later what do I see on one of the acres of racks but a sparkling floor-length red number, tagged Sultry Devil. It […] Read More

Flower arranging once seemed to me an impossible art. That was back when I tried to make the posies fall into the places I had in mind. I gave that up. Now I let the stems pretty much have their way. And I put in some of most everything that’s blooming. This approach produces a […] Read More

A piece of anonymous folk art was standing in front of my drugstore Saturday when I pulled into the parking lot. There on the grass was an edifice built of plastic knives. I think the elements might have already have pushed it a little out of shape. Nonetheless, it remained luminous, a nice little discovery […] Read More

With the email horrors that I’ve been having increasingly for months now, TRULY BOLD would be thinking about anything else. Add to del.icio.us - Stumble It! - Subscribe to this feed - Digg it Read More

Today is the birthday of Gandhi, a man who faced unending heartbreaking frustrations and yet changed the world radically and for the better. He was also notably nice to people, including his jailers, most of the way. A sterling example of bold living. This sculpture of him sits three blocks from my office. Add to […] Read More

You know that website called Publishers Marketplace? You can get a lot of info at no charge there, including a free newsletter about the publishing industry, what book just sold by what agent to what editor for what price level. I’ve generally ignored the $20 a month membership option for additional info there, thinking that […] Read More

At moments before two o’clock this afternoon, I decided to close my eyes for a moment on the little fainting couch in my office. I woke up shortly after six pm when my husband called. In the meantime, my office partner Carrie was working busily in the next room, as she had been since early […] Read More

Sometimes the tricky part of a bold move is what comes next. A very minor example. I wrote an extremely odd short short, a bit of what is often referred to as “flash fiction”, which is to say, a story that’s very short. I wrote it in the form of a style sheet, the list […] Read More