I’m not proud of it but there have been people I have hated in my life. Not many, mind you, and not in a long while. I can only remember one or two of them, but I am sure there were more. None of the people I came to hate were old lovers. Thankfully, I never really went through all that drama that so many women seem to suffer. I dated plenty but I only went steady with a handful... Read more
There is a new phraseology making the rounds in Evangelical circles. I’ve heard it said several times as of late. It is meant to be a form of encouragement, I suppose, although, to be honest I’m never sure why these oddities pop up the way they do. If I had to guess, I’d say that the phrase is a derivative of people raised up under the celebrity culture of Reality TV and big church personalities. I heard it again just... Read more
Truck drivers have their greasy diners. Artists have their pristine galleries. Meth addicts have their flop houses. Cops have their coffee shops. Journalists have their cubicles. Priests have their abbeys. Rock Stars have their tour buses. Authors have libraries & bookstores. I’ll be visiting a couple of my favorites this week. Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. I’m at Albany Public Library. You can get the details here. Friday I’m in Sisters, Oregon at Paulina Springs at 6:30 p.m. For information... Read more
Publication day can be one of the loneliest of all days, says Dani Shapiro. Writers lock themselves for days, years on end, piece-stitching a story together letter by letter, word by word, punctuation mark by punctuation mark. And that’s just the first draft of a story. Most stories undergo umpteen reincarnations before they ever see daylight in the hands of a reader. And that isn’t even the bulk of the work anymore. I met a young man in... Read more
Not a one of them called Children Services. People walked over top the young woman, pushed by her obviously impaired self, ignored the child sitting on the seat across from her mama, and did nothing. Nothing. They did not offer help, to the mother or the child. They did not suggest that police be called. I bet the majority of them had a phone in their pockets. At least one videotaped the entire thing and uploaded it later to a... Read more
I had stayed too long, visiting. Not an uncommon occurrence for me. He – Jelani Greenidge – had pulled his chair up next to mine and introduced himself. Said his wife wouldn’t forgive him if he didn’t. We were friends of sort already, before gathering over Chipotle chicken in the basement of Newberg Friends Church. Church basements are all the same, metal chairs, round tables, people chatting over coffee or colas. Wonder, does Heaven have a fellowship hall? Facebook... Read more
Typically, this time of year, I wake to the sound of mourning doves cooing outside my bedroom window. They are sweet and always remind me of Hunter Mendenhall, a Pearl Harbor survivor, who was the father of one of my dearest friends. Hunter grew up in the backwoods of Alabama. So far back, he said, they had to pipe in sunshine. He grew up at a time and a place where nothing went wasted. Even when he moved to... Read more
The first rule of thumb is to get your facts straight first. You can distort them later as you please, said the beloved Mark Twain. Mardi Gras didn’t start in New Orleans. In 1703 the small French colony of Mobile observed the first Mardi Gras. The first of the mystic societies were formed in the 1830s. It was until 1857, that the Mobile members of the Cowbellian de Rakin Society went to New Orleans, and helped that town form its Mystic... Read more
I was in Leavenworth, Washington over the weekend. I went at the invitation of A Book for All Seasons, the Indie bookstore in the resort town was celebrating it’s 22nd anniversary. It wasn’t my first trip to Leavenworth but it was my first event at A Book for All Seasons. I knew about this charming bookstore, of course. It is one of the favored among Northwest authors. The staff had read Mother of Rain and loved it. I think... Read more
I met a fella named Memphis Storm this week. That’s his first and middle name. When you give a name like that to a baby you can be sure there is a story behind it. I so badly wanted to ask but feared embarrassing the teenager that I actually refrained. I know that will surprise most of you – that I could show any restraint. What can I say? I am growing more sentimental in my feeble years. But... Read more
Karen Spears Zacharias
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