Autumn is apples, pie, spice, and crisp mornings and nights. The pumpkins and pumpkin tones dominate. Festivals and fun around the annual harvest run all over the hemisphere. Cozy time is here.

If Virginia Woolfe was right when she wrote, “the truer the facts the better the fiction” in her classic A Room of One’s Own, there’s no better inspiration for writing a story than a true one. Find an...

You've heard of the hero's journey. What about the villain's journey? A strong villain drives your story for the first half of a novel.

When it comes to storytelling, fear is more than a feeling; it’s an underlying force that runs through multiple story elements, influencing plot, character arc, internal growth, and conflict. Fear mak...

No one is too far away to be cared for or to care. Inspiring those who support a friend living with mental illness.

Established in 1981 by a unanimous United Nations resolution, International Peace Day (Peace Day) provides a globally shared date for humanity to rise above all differences and contribute to a buil…

Productivity works better when tasks get smaller, distractions get quieter and technology handles routine work instead of adding to the workload.

What section of the library would we find you hanging out in?

Book reviews, snippets of book news, and alerts about books outside the glare of the publicity spotlight.

Life’s biggest milestones still come with financial consequences

Would readers feel they know me, if all they knew was my writing?

Captain William Bligh of His Majesty’s Armed Vessel Bounty.   Now, if you saw that on a business card (an anachronism in this instance, I know), and if you have any knowledge of history worth...

Trust me when I say that writing a eulogy for a parent is never easy. I've done it twice for my own parents when they passed, and it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm sure that writing one for...

When the body keeps protecting you after the danger is gone.

Welcome to another blog hop. Today’s topic is: What section of the library would we find you hanging out in? I worked as a library assistant from October 1980 to June 1982, just before my eld…

Most of my time spent in the library, these days, is with my daughter, a nine-year-old. So you can imagine where I might be in the library. Do they have a fish tank? Is there a special event with anim...

History, travel, nostalgia and genealogy

No one is too far away to be cared for or to care. Inspiring those who support a friend living with mental illness.

In the two years or so since I started PostScript Eulogies, I have written hundreds of eulogies for people who have lost someone. In that time, I have done countless video calls or sat in living rooms...

Social media gets plenty of criticism, but the platforms also give people a way to find causes, support nonprofits and rally around community needs.

Literary Agents, Free Writing Contests, Submission Calls & more

Outside the usual autumn stuff, what else does the season hold for you annually?

Book reviews, snippets of book news, and alerts about books outside the glare of the publicity spotlight.

This October there are more than eight dozen calls for submissions. All of these are paying markets, and none charge submission fees. As alw...

Imagine a man who calls my beloved tea ‘pigeon sweat.’ In one of many atrocious puns, he thinks ghosts ‘need to believe in themselves.’ And he says we should all act like goldfishes, because...

Texas Reads Women’s Fiction with Jann Alexander Like a Texas road trip that can seem daunting, women’s fiction is all about the journey. Both are colorful, fun, informative, and often […]

November 12 – 15, 2026

I almost forgot to blog in September! Reviewing My Adventures With Superman season three, X-Men ’97 season two, & Spider-Man: Brand New Day in a row was exhausting! I was almost going to …