Author – writer – children’s fiction – crossover – editor — Dear readers, after almost four decades of writing, and working to find an agent, attending workshops and writers’ conferences, writing every day while raising a family (after a successful career in retail management prior to becoming a stay-at-home mum to raise my children), I joined Medium in 2021. It took…

Listening – Skills – communication — As Mick Gibson points out in the poem (link is below), there are gifts to be gotten from listening. It is easy to forget how good listening is: ‘Listen’. After reading this story, I wanted to focus on what we don’t see and what we hear when what we should…

The fortunes of artists — As Robert Katz and Celestine Dars point out in their book, the Impressionists were given that name by a critic. This was not a, ‘unified radical movement’ [1] The Impressionists This impressionistic work and aesthetic is juxtaposed against the industrial revolution, and should be viewed as such. It is easy…

Moon – Clouds – Moods Driving home yesterday evening on a dark road I have never travelled, but with the help of my Sat Nav, as it was a detour, I was struck by the moon. I couldn’t see the moon, but it lit up the sky above me, and I realised that without it…

Did you get a message? — I was out and about on a long 15 k walk at the weekend when I received a message stating that the reader liked my content (the link to the Medium story in question is in the next paragraph), and would offer to pay $50 for such writing – with…

Observations and theoretical discussions on writing biological sex and gender in society into literature — “A category only exists for its special purpose and must be forgotten as soon as that purpose is served.” [1] This essay considers the relationship between a contemporary work of fiction by the author, The Motherboard, and a range of literary contexts and theoretical concerns in fictional and theoretical writing…

January Six Word Photo Challenge “Hometown Pride” — Two small business owners share hug. Feelings evoked by the challenge This photograph was taken over two decades ago. It was spontaneous, which may be why I like it so much. We call spontaneous photographs, candid photographs because they are not staged. I had just swept my daughter up for a hug on a cold winter’s day at the beach where…

Interview – Processes – Ideas — Have you ever been challenged to a game of chess at an interview? Don’t laugh. I’m serious. All these good-natured challenges that keep appearing in my inbox has me ruminating on what challenges are. I don’t think they are quite the same as fixed skills like knowing how to operate…

How close do you look? — It occurred to me today, as I checked out my stats that people are mainly looking at my drawings, rather than reading the story that accompaines them when I post one of these drawings a day that I have been posting of late. I thought, why not break the drawing…