My World Piece Memoir is Coming!
Seven years after baking my way around the world, my memoir about the journey is going to be published. The Kindle version is now available for pre-order; the paperback can be purchased on SEPTEMBER 21—International Day of Peace (also World Gratitude Day). People are already saying glowing things about the book “A book about pie? Yes, but […]
Ode to the Farm Pond
It’s my baptismal font, my hole in the ground that gets me a few feet closer to the earth’s core. It’s in these waters, the color of meat broth, where I immerse myself to calm my anxieties, soothe my aches—of the heart and otherwise—and to make me feel closer to nature, which to me is […]
The Right Books at the Right Time
Sometimes you come across exactly the right book at exactly the right time. A year ago, when I was in a funk and had lost my way, along with my sense of purpose, I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book “Big Magic.” In it, she poses the question: “What is it you love doing so much that […]
How I’m Dealing with the Pandemic (And Other Anxieties)
I want to get back to being a writer, to writing the book I started in early December, or to scrapping that and starting a new one, even just to blogging, but I’m too restless. Like most people, I am sitting in a prickly pear cactus field of fear and anxiety. With the world as […]
Celebrating Oktoberfest with my Book Launch!
Check this out! It’s a #1 New Release!! It’s here! Hausfrau Honeymoon: Love, Language, and Other Misadventures is now out and released into the world. It’s been a bittersweet launch for several reasons: the first is that the book is (once again) centered around Marcus. I wrote it while we were living in Germany and […]
My Next Book, HAUSFRAU HONEYMOON, is Coming Soon
In June, after logging several months of marathon hours at my computer, I finished my manuscript for my American Gothic House memoir. (It really was like running a marathon!) I submitted it to a big-five publisher who had asked to see it, which in itself was a kind of thrill. Once I hit the send […]
Could Today Get Any Better?
Today has been surreal. I woke up to discover that the story I wrote for the New York Times about living in the American Gothic House was placed on the front page of the Arts section. Early this morning, a friend sent me a picture of the print version of the newspaper —since we don’t […]
All it Takes is a Few Words, a Few Bites, and a Willingness to Try
As you can see, I am really focused on promoting peace, love and understanding these days. It’s a reaction to all the political maneuvering going on, a lot of policies being changed that are resulting in putting lives at risk, all because some people (too many) live in fear of what they don’t know, what […]
“There is ALWAYS Hope, Bea.”
There is ALWAYS hope, Bea. He wrote this—with the word always in all caps—above a newspaper article he had circled in black ink. He left the paper on the kitchen table knowing I would be down for my morning coffee well after he had left the house to feed hay to his cows, check on […]
The Book That Doesn’t Want to Be Born…Yet
The photo to the left (it’s a Bitmoji) is me. It’s me and it sums up everything I am feeling right now about writing my American Gothic House memoir. I am trying to get my story down — my whole story — about my four years of misadventures living in a rural Iowa tourist attraction. […]