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The American holiday of Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and if you live in the USA you will find yourself increasingly subjected to articles, blogs, vlogs, memes etc. about ways to encourage a spirit of thanksgiving in your life. It gets a bit cloying after a while. And yet, cultivating a spirit of gratitude is one of the most powerful ways to dispel depression and gloom.  And I can attest to the fact that it is perfectly possible to cultivate a thankful spirit even if you

If you saw my video clip announcing the publishing of this blog you already know I sustained a “major injury” last night while sleepily caressing the feet of Truman our house cat, or as I like to call him, our house panther. I don’t know if he bit me, or scratched me because I was half asleep, but the blood flowed for a couple of minutes. He was unceremoniously dumped off my lap, onto the floor. (We’ve since made up.) According to my mother, domestic cats are only one generat

I didn’t write a blog post earlier this week because the muse wasn’t with me, and now I’m absorbed in the terrible waiting for hurricane Melissa to make landfall in Jamaica. When we lived in southeast Florida, we had several friends who were from that island nation. We’ve since lost touch, but our fondness for the country and its people remains. I can only hope that those who could seek shelter elsewhere, that is, those who had the money and the connections in the USA (the ri

Those who know me know how disenchanted I am with the publishing business. It is not, my friends, like it was for Louisa May Alcott, who took her precious manuscript “Little Women” to a publisher in Boston and who was thereafter taken care of like a precious asset. Publishing is now an ethically murky business where the worth of a manuscript is not at issue, only how many sales they can make in six months. After that, the book is dead in the water, due to the chimeric tastes

With all the recent attention given to the annual awarding of the Nobel prizes (I wonder why?) I began to mull over the fact that the most coveted of these prizes is the Peace Prize and that it comes out of a nation that was once a very violent culture. Are the Nordic people now more peaceful than other cultures in the West? Have they evolved further along the continuum that leads from brutality to civility? Before I discuss the evolution of culture, I have to say that the Vi

An event that is unequivocally historic took place on Friday October 3 rd . The 106 th  Archbishop of Canterbury was announced to the...

Last week I shared a post on Facebook that amused me. It was a simple meme that asked if the reader was ready for the fall, and it posed...

Every week for the last few months I have wanted to start my blog post with “What a week!” or something similar, and the world continues...

There is a line from the movie “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” that has been running through my mind over this last week. The hotel manager...

I didn't post a blog last week because I was out of town attending a wonderful writer’s conference in the historic town of Berea,...

Last week I wrote about my inspiration for Aethelreda. This week I am writing about my inspiration for Paulos. I have had the privilege...

On the embankment of the River Thames near Westminster in London you will find a large bronze statue of a warrior woman on a chariot,...

What a week! And the drama threatens to continue as the big bad guy is asking the little guys to sign an indemnity form absolving them...

I’ve been to the UK several times, and I loved it there. I’ve been to Italy twice, and I loved it there too. If I were super wealthy, I’d...

One of the major themes of “Bound by an Oath” is the theme of forgiveness. Blaedswith lived most of her life, unable to forgive her...

Warning: My content this week is a cry from the heart, and it is political. In 410 AD, when the Roman troops packed up and left...

(I apologize if I have ventured off into “sermonizing” for this post. That’s a bit of an occupational hazard as I'm sure you can...

Happy Independence Day to all of my readers in or from the USA! I’m way out of sequence with posting to Instagram and to my blog this...

My book “Bound by an Oath” covers a span of years that sees its main characters mature and age. Back in the fifth century, you were very...

We were out of town last week, enjoying time with friends in the Cooperstown and Lake George areas of New York. The weather was mild, and...