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A naysayer has issued a call for “Criminal Minds” to be canceled, because she felt the recent episode,… Continue

Think Atlanta summer Olympics – Richard Jewell – a victim of a ‘trial by media.’ Eric Robert Rudolph was later found to have been the bomber, and does his name even ring a bell? He pled guilty to that bombing, as well as several others. The mayor of Atlanta publicly thanked Jewell in 2006, recognizing him as the hero we all initially thought he was. Almost exactly a year… Continue

So I've been mired in a new school year of teaching classes, the last of my PhD courses, and just life in general. But an issue is burning for me...so I'm resurrecting my blog from the brink of obscurity.



So the issue begins... Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you lean toward (and don't many of us actually hover somewhere in that middle space now known as No-Man's Land?), we still live in America. But something a local radio host said in Columbia last week bothered… Continue

I just received the new book My First Year in the Classroom, with a story I wrote in it! I'm excited! You can check it out on… Continue

I've been immersed in the Missouri Writing Project Advanced Institute this summer, and while it's sad to be so busy you don't blog or write about your experiences until after the fact, it's rejuvenating to feel the breath release knowing there's still weeks until school starts with endless days to create.



To surround myself with writers is like a buoy for me. It lifts me, allows me to tread and gawk at those around me with the gift to leave me in awe. These two weeks at the MWP have… Continue

Now that I tweet on Twitter and put updates on Facebook, I'm not nearly as good about blogging... (my publicist has found the coolest application that allows me to do all those sites through one place...)



But I've started a project that's worthy of a blog... Karen Althage, a breast cancer survivor, approached me about writing her story. She's amazing, and she's given me the motivation to write about something important, and something that ALL of us need to support. After several… Continue

Hatred, I’ve learned, can come in pretty packages... And often it’s cloaked in ways that make it more than pretty, angelic even. It’s scary how many people have some elemental quality they hate in another human being, and that person or that quality often never intersect in any way. So where does the hatred come from? Psychologists would say it’s an innate fear of being the hated, but perhaps it’s a deeper chasm forming in our country.



I find it disturbing how divisive we’ve become.… Continue

It has been a weird winter and an even stranger spring. But it's been interesting these past few weeks.



The Missouri Writers Guild conference was amazing... I got to meet Lee Goldberg, the writer of Monk (the series and the books, and he made fun of Missouri with no mercy!!), and some phenomenal editors, agents, and fellow writers (Kate Angelella, Annette Fix,… Continue