My long relationship with “the Scottish Play” dates back to grade school, when I was assigned the role of one of the Weird Sisters (was the teacher trying to tell me something?). Two other girls and I paraded around a faux cauldron to intone those famous lines:

I love this time of year. Not just because it’s the holidays and the decorations and the festiveness of the season. But because it’s a time to reflect on all that’s happened this year. A time to review what took place. A time to plan for the next year. That's why I titled this post ending the year with flourish.

'I regret to inform you, but your daughter is no longer enrolled here,' the Mother Superior announced to my parents on a cold, winter day in Bethlehem, PA. I was thirteen. I hung my head, sad for my parents, but still not understanding what the hullabaloo was all about. It wasn't like I was a longtime student at the convent school.

Everyone who knows me knows I'm big on planning. That's because my brain gets all stressed out if I don't know what's going on, whether I have time to say yes to something, or when I'm afraid I'm missing out on something. That's why I already know where we're spending Christmas (with friends a few minutes away), what I'm bringing for dinner (a homemade chocolate pie, homemade cornbread, and drinks), and what I'll be wearing (embroidered jeans, a lightweight knit shirt, and taking both a sweater and sweatpants for warmth and comfort later).

It’s the holiday season and if you’re like me, you’re consumed with decorations, shopping and tying up ends. So I’m going to make this a brief post. Two years ago, I published my first holiday novella. It’s a warm story about a mature couple discovering love unexpectedly. Here’s a little taste of holiday love._______________________Holiday BoyfriendVALERIE I am still in awe at how a chance encounter in the elevator introduced me to a man who is everything I longed for and the opposite of what I was mourning.

I discovered early on that I inherited the gift of the gab from my large Irish family when I penned a story about a princess who ran away to Paris with her pet turtle Lulu. I was twelve.

Thanksgiving was three days ago, and I’m still reeling at what I witnessed. My sister hosted, as she has for the last twenty years. That was the only thing predictable about the holiday, though. I was there, of course.

all I hear is this song… carried to my ears upon waves as they ebb and return a symphony of love played on instruments of the heart—

I didn’t lose my voice. I just can’t find the heart of my story or the right words to express it.

I’ve been a fan of the Bluestocking Belles’ anthologies for years, probably since Alina K. Field first joined them. I’ve been a fan of Alina K. Field since she first published Rosalyn’s Ring and it won the 2014 Book Buyer’s Best contest. (It absolutely lived up to its reputation.)

Stories feed the soul. Food feeds the body. This fall, writers across the country are coming together to do both. Please donate to Writes Against Hunger!

Stories feed the soul. Food feeds the body. This fall, writers across the country are coming together to do both. Please donate to Writes Against Hunger!

The other day, I was thinking about how this regular “A Slice of Orange” column by members of the Bethlehem Writers Group (BWG) came about. It all began when one of our members, Sally W. Paradysz, wrote a monthly memoir/meditation from her “Cabin in the Woods” of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. When she started her regular contributions, she had already been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, but she didn’t waste her precious remaining time bemoaning her condition. Instead, she found many things for which to be grateful.

This month is release month for my next book, No Plan at All. So it is No Plan at All's book birthday!

When Jewish mothers arrived at Auschwitz holding tight onto their children, they had no idea their little ones would be 'stolen' from them and murdered after the selection. Innocent babes with chubby cheeks and big eyes along with young boys still in short pants and shy little girls in pigtails. It's a fate too horrible to think about... yet it happened.

I've always been one of those people who's trying to get more done, looking for ways to be more efficient so I can do more in the same amount of time. I even taught a time management class for writers for over ten years, sharing everything I learned so people could try new ways to get more writing done. It worked delightfully well for me for years.

Stories feed the soul. Food feeds the body. This fall, writers across the country are coming together to do both. Writers Against Hunger is a nationwide write-a-thon uniting storytellers, poets, novelists, journalists, and anyone who believes words have power. As SNAP benefits end and food insecurity rises, we’re using our creative energy to help fill plates across America.

LONG time friend and one of my favorite writers, Lyssa Kay Adams, has organized Writers Against Hunger, and I am happy to participate. Stories feed the soul. Food feeds the body. This fall, writers across the country are coming together to do both.

I love runways and bangles and color and clothes. With a sheet and two holes, I was ghastly not Vogue.

At the chiming of eleven bells, the retreat’s evening session began. Squeezed around the table, six people scooted chairs until no one brushed up against anyone else. The room’s reddish glow came from a candelabra on a nearby shelf, and the air hung thick with cedar incense.

Tracy Reed’s ability to capture an audience is unmatched. Her body of work has been described as a host of stimulating adventures and invigorating expression.

sultry afternoon in the vast cornfields reaping gold

When you love someone, you want to know everything about them. That someone, in this case, was my maternal grandmother. We shared a close bond, but there was a wrinkle on the face-map of her life that I could not trace. I wish I had asked her my questions while she was still with me. 

Old Books and Faded Dreams transports readers on a nostalgic journey with the townspeople of Tilden, a quaint community in Madison County, Nebraska. At the center of the heartwarming story is Maggie Davis, a middle-aged widow and heiress to a grand Victorian estate. The stately home, which Maggie shares with her spunky nine-year-old daughter Jenna, also serves as a bed-and-breakfast to a once regular, but now transitory, clientele.

Tracy Reed’s ability to capture an audience is unmatched. Her body of work has been described as a host of stimulating adventures and invigorating expression.