Open the door a crack. I’ve returned constantly to that graced remark. Memory after memory has arisen of people in my past who re-directed or re-affirmed my approach to what I believe and how I treat others. Here are a few of the many I recently recalled who brought me what I needed to help shape […]
Month: November 2014
What Makes for a Great Villain?
Where do characters come from? My protagonist, Mary Boland, in Shanty Gold, came purely from my dreams. Dreams I had from the time of my childhood about a beautiful young woman with wild, red hair riding a horse bareback along the Irish seacoast. She was easy. But how about when you need a villain—a consummate […]
If you ever fly across the seas to Ireland,
And I’m hoping, dear friend, that you will. As I’ve told you, the Emerald Isle is my favorite vacation destination. Italy comes a very close second. In the 1950s during his first visit to Ireland, Johnny Cash wrote the song Forty Shades of Green, but that doesn’t do justice to flying over […]
Why A Famine With A Sea Full of Fish?
I used to wonder why the Irish, starving during the Great Famine, didn’t simply go out in their boats and catch some fish. Were they ignorant or something? I mean, potatoes are nice, but fish is divine. Forgetting that their harbors were owned by the British and all the fish they caught were […]
