Today Inbox: Un-fan Mail for A Silence of Mockingbirds Mrs. Zacharias, First let me introduce myself. I am a longtime friend of not just Sarah’s but the Brill’s having known them since I was 4. Sarah was my first friend when I moved to Pendleton, and being painfully shy it was hard to find friends, but not with Sarah. My father, being a staple in the small town, was well known and respected. Because it was such a small town... Read more
I took an ailing veteran to the VA Center in Boise, Idaho this week. He’s a young fellow, in his mid-forties. A big lug of a guy, 6′ 3″, and hauling around too much weight on his broken frame of a body. Twenty years ago, when he was all taut muscle and in running form, an infection set in, ate away his thigh muscle. During those three weeks he spent at the hospital, doctors considered amputating the leg. Years of... Read more
Ever have one of those times when: We switched our sons’ school, we adopted a baby from Ethiopia our twelve-year-old got swine flu the week before we went to Africa and we all got sick while we were there. At the same time, our adopted daughter had pneumonia and wanted nothing to do with us … A month later my mom was hospitalized for eight days with blood clots in her lungs, and a kidney infection… I remember telling my husband... Read more
I once held F. Scott Fitzgerald’s battered leather briefcase in my trembling hands. “Most libraries are showrooms. This place is a mess. This is my workroom,” said Dr. Matthew J. Bruccoli. It was the spring of 2005 and the preeminent F. Scott Fitzgerald scholar and collector was giving me a guided tour at the University of South Carolina’s Thomas Cooper library, where the good professor was working to catalog his impressive collection. In 1947, Bruccoli was a teen driving around the Bronx... Read more
She stood across the table from me unable to speak. A catch in her throat, she said. You see, I read your other book, A Silence of Mockingbirds, the one on Karly Sheehan. I started following your blog. It was such a powerful book. Can you tell me, she said, pausing again, tearing up: How is David? He’s good, I replied. Liz is in med school, working on her pediatric oncology degree. She is beautiful and the light of his... Read more
So the thing is I hate November. I should probably seek therapy for hating a month. I mean, it’s not like a month is a living, breathing, hating thing. It’s just days in a year-long calendar, right? I think the only other person in the world who might feel like I do is Joe Galloway. I think Joe probably hates the month of November, too. Although, he’s never told me that himself. I just happen to know that November... Read more
Developing Unforgettable Characters: A Writing Workshop Event Details Date(s) & Time(s): November 2, 2013 at 9:00 AM until 12:00 PM Location: Downtown Asotin County Library, 417 Sycamore, Clarkston, WA. Phone: (509) 758-5454 for more information Event Description Calling all writers and aspiring authors: Do you know how to create truly unforgettable characters? Are you hamstrung on the plot? Can you write in a manner that will garner the attention of agents and editors?Author Karen Spears Zacharias will be at Asotin... Read more
Re-homing. It has such a welcoming sound to it, doesn’t it? Like a bird who returns south for a season. Or the once homeless now resettled into a comfy place. In reality, it’s the verbiage assigned to the very ugly practice of parents swapping out adopted children they no longer want. Reuters reports: “As nations around the world make adopting overseas more difficult for Americans, the U.S. government has taken no measures to restrict informal “private re-homings,” custody transfers of unwanted children... Read more
Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist -Mark Driscoll Pansy: a usually disparaging : a. weak or effeminate man or boy b. usually disparaging : a male homosexual Pacifist: adverb: strongly and actively opposed to conflict and especially war. Over at Religion News Service, Jonathan Merritt reports that Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll has outraged several well-known Christians with a blog post about whether God is a pacifist. Read it here. Typically I ignore anything Mark Driscoll says. I’m sure that won’t bother him a... Read more
The call came the other night. A family member wanting to let me know that Dave Matheny had passed away earlier that morning, surrounded by the family who loved him so well. Dave Matheny was a farmer from out Heppner way. An avid outdoorsman, Matheny was scouting for elk in Oregon’s Morrow County on Sept. 9, 2001, when the three-year-old colt he was on grew skittish on a the steep part of an old miner’s trail. Dave pulled back on... Read more
Karen Spears Zacharias
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