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Iceland, 2015 Being invited for an artist or author residency is such an honor. Last May I went to northern Iceland for a week long artist residency to help seventy kids in grades one to ten paint murals. The school was Valsárskóli in Svalbarðsströnd, which is across the fjord from where my son Eric and […]

Today we walked among snow-encrusted trees at Maudslay State Park and an idea came to me. Now that I have drawn it, let me explain. Symbols can be powerful. Consider Gerald Holtom’s peace symbol, which he designed for the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War in the fifties. It is now widely used and is […]

In this terrific TedX talk, author Linda Sue Park talks about a path to changing the world. Life is not fair, but stories engage the minds of those who can develop empathy and act in heroic ways. Bookmark

I received Tomorrowland for Christmas and we watched it the other night. I loved every minute – it was especially fantastic as I grew up on the Space Coast just south of Cape Canaveral and have some pretty strong feelings about NASA and Disney’s vision of tomorrow. Here is my favorite quote from the movie though, the parable of good vs bad wolves:

A few days ago I watched a barn fire grow on social media over how a blog post was titled by another reviewer. The fanning of the flames, the giddiness of building the fire, turned my stomach. So much time and energy put toward dragging someone down and all for what? Twenty-four hours later it was done, everyone had moved on and here’s the thing – the blog post said what they wanted it to say, everyone was just pissed over the snarky title.

Yeah. This is what we spend our time on now.

I’ve done it, we’ve all done it, and it’s so damn easy to do it….to just get stuck in something that only lives to spread negativity. I can’t believe how much of my life has been spent living that way.

So, I’m trying to feed the good wolf. I should have been feeding the good wolf all along – I have deep regrets over time spent tending the bad wolf, especially when I was much younger. All I can do now is try to avoid that animal in the future which, by the way, brings me back to the greatness of Tomorrowland. Here’s the full trailer – check it out if you can:

I originally posted this article on WritersRumpus.com. As one of my heroes, the Dalai Lama, once said…“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”  Let’s each one of us be the mosquito!   —Lin Oliver This week Lin Oliver, co-founder and Executive Director of the international Society of […]

also posted on WritersRumpus.com most visuals by author Here’s something for writers and illustrators to consider: the painful physical effects of your work. Don’t laugh. I kid you not. You might think that the arm in the photo (mine, actually) looks pretty healthy. After years of making welded steel sculpture using all sorts of heavy […]

Every now and again I come across an article that makes me long to be 17 years old again so I have the information to provide a kick ass answer to people who ask me what I think I can do with a degree in history. (I was told over and over the only option for historians was to become a teacher and as I did not want to teach, I could not major in history.) (Of course I later went back to school and got a second degree in history just because I wanted to and ended up teaching history for 5 years to soldiers but none of that was planned.)

In the last issue of Frankie there is a piece on two Australian “history detectives” who own a company called Born & Bred. Primarily, they are genealogists but listen to their job descriptions:

Lee Hooper has a love of old creepy houses, unlocking mysteries found within Victorian public records and writing fiction and non-fiction that expresses her love for a good spun yarn and the articulate telling of true tales.

Phoebe Wilkens’ passion is genealogy, discovering a love for researching families, their origins and finding skeletons in the closet. Phoebe also loves to write about historical events and delights in discovering treasures in the archives.

Also, apparently you can get a degree in “Local, Family and Applied History”. I would have killed for that one. It has all worked out (history, aviation, northern research!), but studying family history for credit would have been awesome.

Or I could have been an exploration historian which is so cool, I don’t even know where to begin. (Take that annoying family member! I shall study great explorers and write about them!) (And yes, that is what I am doing right now.) (So it did work out but it took bloody long to get here!) (Love Polar World’s books by the way.)

I wish I was bold enough at 17 to simply announce “I shall be a historian and that is enough” but I needed some guide as to what “historian” meant beyond the obvious classroom definition. I needed to see all the places out there where history could matter – where it could be an actual career. “Historian” just sounded like too much for me to hope for back then. Silly, isn’t it? But that was who I was then…..it seems so very long ago.

I don’t know how to convey how monumental June has been for me professionally. It is the first month where I felt like I had myself organized and that the things I have been working on came to fruition. Most significantly, I have an immense amount of momentum on all fronts and I have a plan for all my writing projects. None of this came easily or quickly and I think the biggest lesson I learned last month is that if you do the work, the success will come. This seems obvious (and even a little sappy) but I really needed the kind of results that June brought me.

Here is what I got done last month:

1. Review submitted to Locus for Beastly Bones by William Ritter.

2. Reviews submitted to Booklist for the biography Ecology or Conservation and the environmental title A River Runs Again.

3. A query I sent to Bitch was turned down, which is a bummer of course but on the positive side, I sent the query and I got a response and that is all good. I also sent out follow-ups for two other queries I sent in April and did not hear anything back from either of those, so I’m now done with those folks and moving those two pieces on to someplace else. (As both of them are written, I’ll be sending out queries on them this month.)

4. I sent a query to Alaska Airlines magazine for a short piece about an interesting Alaskan.

5. Sent a query to Narratively on a missing Alaskan pilot from 1929 which was accepted.

6. Only one piece ran in AK Dispatch this month, but I had a long substantive talk with the executive editor about moving me to a different editor who had more time and what the paper wants for Bush Pilot moving forward. There have just been a lot of growing pains as the news site and the newspaper came together and now I have a new editor and everything should be a lot more regular and I’ll get more articles up. Plus we are talking about some stuff to run over the next couple of months that I’ve really wanted to do, so I’m quite excited about how my work with them will continue.

7. I had a strategic consultation with Lauren Cerand that helped me map out my writing future and also best handle the biggest development this month (see #8). Speaking with Lauren was a financial investment I felt that I needed to do if I wanted to take my writing seriously and I’m really glad I did. We all need perspective and guidance sometimes; we need to have someone outside of our own little world who can help us figure out how to tackle the writing projects we are considering and planning. If you want people to take you and your work seriously, then you need to take it seriously. Even though I have been a working writer for some time, I feel like this consultation was one of the more professional things I’ve ever done.

8. And the big news – I signed with agent Stephanie Koven with Janklow & Nesbit! Readers of this blog will know that my former agent left the business a couple of years ago and so, while The Map of My Dead Pilots remains with Writers House, I no longer had an agent with Writers House. There are few things in life more dispiriting for a writer than losing their agent and even though this was not my fault, it still left me back at square one. I’m quite pleased to be with Stephanie and to have her so excited about the book I’m working on.

9. Which brings me to the book! I can’t say much right now, but the plan is to have a draft chapter to my agent by the end of the month and then move forward from there to get three chapters done and a book proposal. I have had an enormous amount of success with my research & interviews thus far and am really really excited. It’s narrative nonfiction on a historical subject and….that’s all I’m going to say.

AND WE GOT A PUPPY!!!!
His name is Tesla, we rescued him from an animal shelter in Central Washington (he and his litter mate were found on the side of the road) and he is a Catahoula Leopard. It’s okay to fall a little bit in love with him.

And here we go!

1. Reviews of Bone Gap, Magonia and Shadowshaper submitted to Locus. I also read Archivist Wasp and will be submitting that review this week.

2. For Booklist I reviewed Modern Love by Aziz Ansari, Rhythm of the Wild by Kim Heacox and 81 Days Below Zero by Brian Murphy.

3. In April I completed two pieces, one a Q&A with author Leigh Newman about growing up between Alaska and Maryland and the other about the Scientist in the Field series of books for tweens/teens. I submitted queries on these to a couple of publications, waited six weeks with no reply and then sent follow-ups to both. I also submitted the Q&A to another publication in May.

4. I also pitched a possible aviation pieces to a couple of magazines. I heard back from one – nice personal letter from the editor but he didn’t ask to see anything just thanked me for getting in touch. So, I’ll follow-up with that in a couple of weeks as I will hopefully have more published at Dispatch on the subject I wrote him about. Perhaps a second short article will make him see that it is worthy of a longer piece in his publication.

5. Not a lot overall in Alaska Dispatch the past couple of months – the editors are busy and my stuff is back burner as it is not “news”. But I did continue to publish several pieces there including a book review of Denali Justice about a 1981 plane crash that I thought was fascinating. I also have three most pieces pending.

6. There were several good books read, several of which I have reviewed at Guys Lit Wire (or will be reviewed this month). I advise, as always, that you check out things over there.

I also just finished a nice bit of light reading: The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo. It’s a family story: adult daughter learns of an previously unknown grandmother’s death and slight inheritance so travels to her mother’s hometown where many secrets are uncovered and she comes to terms with her difficult relationship with her parent, who is also deceased. They drama was good (and unexpected), the characters complex and the small town Oklahoma setting pitch perfect. All in all a good one for this fall when the weather turns chilly. (It’s due out in September.)

There were also all the other things of life such as business and family and that was all good but busy. I am frustrated though with my slow progress on my writing; with the time it takes to put my thoughts together and transfer them to the page. It’s not a block – I have plenty to write – but it is a……struggle. That’s my challenge for June. Start a long piece. I will pitch a few more items and I have three more things to get in the queue for Dispatch. The long piece is what I need to contend with now. I’m floundering on that front and must get past this inaction.

March was a really weird month. I had a plan for what I wanted to get done and then everything was tossed out the window when I heard from the State of Alaska Library, Archives and Museum. I worked with them last year to develop the new aviation exhibit and early last month they contacted me with the outline and request for labels. As the labels are very specific, and very specific word counts, and the whole thing had to be done by the end of the month, it ate up a lot of my time. I’m thrilled to be co-curating this project so I was happy to do whatever was necessary (and the paycheck is nice too). But it pushed everything else I was planning right off the table.

1. I did submit reviews for Nova Ren Suma’s The Walls Around Us and Edward Hogan’s The Messengers to Locus. Look for those in a couple of months.

2. I had several pieces run in AK Dispatch News – most notably an article on the dangerous history of commercial use of aircraft for spotting in the herring fishing industry.

3. One review turned into Booklist and two books read (though I didn’t get to the reviews on those until this month).

4. I spent several days exchanging emails with an online longform journalism site discussing a pitch I submitted about Alaska. It went back and forth, the editor was very cool, but eventually it was clear that it was impossible for me to accomplish what they wanted. (Especially the suggestion of travel to the bush which is crazy expensive.) The time and energy this ate up made me reevaluate what I should be pitching and where, which is an ongoing process. I think I’ve finally got it figured out….here’s hoping.

And that was it. Not much accomplished on the genealogy front which is frustrating. I did send a couple of emails to family members asking them questions but I need to sit down and figure out a few things so I can get some letters in the mail. I also need to find a map of New York City for the late 1800s/early 1900s as I have some addresses but don’t have context for where those neighborhoods were.

A lot more has happened in April, but more on that in a few weeks!

We're through February so here's a belated look at how I did keeping my work resolutions for the year.

1. Reviewed two books for Booklist, one on the Iraq War and one on how income inequality in the U.S. affects children. This was a slower month but after January (where I reviewed 8), it was welcome.

2. No books read for Locus, but did submit the list for the next several months, made several requests and received a couple of books.

3. Six articles in the Bush Pilot blog including one on winter survival that generated some angry comments but is something I'm rather proud of.

4. The essay I submitted was rejected with a form letter response. I think there is another way to write it that would improve it and I think I got too personal. I'm not crushed by this rejection at all; mostly I'm just happy that I wrote it and submitted it all in one month.

5. I wrote a piece on a science series for teens that I've been trying to place. I sent out some queries to lit sites that have gotten me nowhere (I wrote about this last week), so now I'm trying to send it out to science sites which might end up being a much better fit anyway.

6. Conducted a couple of interviews I needed to do for some Alaska work and sent out a list of questions for some other pieces I have planned. All of that is in the works this month.

7. Did a ton of research on places to submit too. In a lot of ways this is the toughest part of writing (maybe even harder than writing itself). Now I know what I'm writing and where I'm sending out to (first try, second try, third try), which makes me feel like I'm in a lot more control of my writing life.

February was okay for me. I didn't make a big strides forward, but didn't fall back either. One lapse was my failure to get the Alaskan profile done that I planned to write. I don't know how I failed on that one. March has been better - I'm only halfway through but I think it's going to be a more successful month for me which is important.

Now, I just need to get my photo albums back on track......

What do Ezra Jack Keats, Sylvia Plath, Stephen King, Richard Avedon, Truman Capote, Robert McClosky, and Andy Warhol have in common, besides being incredibly creative? Ding. Time’s up. Each won a Scholastic Art & Writing Award when they were in their teens. Of this experience Richard Avedon, among others, said winning was “the defining moment […]

So, one month gone in 2015 and time to take a moment and assess what was accomplished. Here we go:

1. Eight books reviewed for Booklist. This is a way higher number than usual, as four of the books were read in December but I didn't write about them until I got home in mid-January. Getting all of the books reviewed cleared my decks for Booklist though--I've got nothing waiting in the wings for them.

2. One book read and reviewed for Locus.

3. Four articles written and edited for the Bush Pilot blog. Only two of them ran in January but two more should run this week. My schedule there means running two items a week in the blog which I hope to be consistent with. I have one piece drafted to turn in and notes on two more. My editor is out of town until the 8th, but I'll have articles ready for him when he gets back.

4. Essay written and submitted. One of my resolutions is to have an essay submitted somewhere each month. Drafting on essay #2 for 2015 begins now.

5. Pitches made on two longer book-related pieces. Followed up on an earlier pitch to the same place and heard it is still in the mix and hopefully now, after my nudge, I'll hear back on it.

And that is all on that. It's important to note that all of this work was for paying outlets--I'm officially done with writing for free (with the exception of here and Guys Lit Wire, of course).

I also sent out a letter making a Freedom Of Information Act request for an AK aviation article. This will be a big one to write (a two-parter I think) and I'm hoping to start a draft on it this week.

And there's a research letter I need to send out on another essay; I don't know why I've been nervous about even writing this but I have. It's just a letter, but I guess I have such high hopes for this piece that even starting it concerns me a little.

And finally a pitch to put together for a short piece in another magazine. It's less than a thousand words, a straightforward profile of an interesting Alaskan. This is on my "to do" list for February.

So, not too bad a beginning to 2015. I've met my goals, didn't fall behind on anything and have been consistent in posting and reviewing. I'm going to call this a win for January. My biggest resolution for this year is consistency; so far, so good.

Today the weather is perfect for writing, drawing, painting, or other creative work. It’s 9 degrees F. and snowing like crazy. There’ll probably be an additional 12″ by the time it’s over, on top of the 22″ we already had. Bookmark

I am not immune to the irony of reading a book about decluttering in order to figure out how to declutter my life. I get how silly it is to buy something that helps you get rid of things, but I couldn't help it when I saw Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. This book is such a beautiful object--no dust jacket, small size, lovely textured cover--that I wanted to own it anyway.

Which should explain exactly why I need a decluttering book in the first place.

Lots of folks have reviewed Kondo's book and her method. It's a gazillion seller, she's basically a rock star in Japan and all the major newspapers and magazines have covered it. What I can tell you is the part that affected me which is Kondo's assertion that one should not sort by geography, ("today I will clean out the closet"), but rather by type. You need to pull every like item into one place and then gaze upon what you've got and then go all the way through that pile.

Don't stop.

This means you don't go through the clothes in one dresser or room, you gather all of your clothes, all of your shirts and socks and gloves and coats and whatever, and you put it all on the floor somewhere and then you, I imagine, freak out as you gaze upon just how many shirts and socks and gloves and coats and whatever you actually own. Then, with the realization that you have way too much staring you in the face, Kondo tells you to start going through that pile and get rid of everything that does not work for you. (Or in her words, "gives you joy".)

I don't have a ton of stuff (I swear), but I have now gone through the homes of multiple deceased relatives and I am so tired of sorting through piles and piles of stuff that just ends up in the donate bin or the trash can. I am tired of that being my job - to clean up the messes that my relatives did not get to when they were alive. The thing is, as I listen to a lot of relatives bemoaning the fact that they never can get to dealing with their stuff, I'm sure I'll be doing it again and again in the future.

And again.

My frustration over all of that has few outlets, which is where Kondo's book comes in. At the very least, I can better sort through my own stuff and at least feel like I am in control of that part of my life.

Plus, I think I have way too many pairs of socks.

[Post pic of Kondo's method of vertical folding from Modern Mrs. Darcy .)

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day; perfect for a touch-up on Heron’s Dream. This kinetic sculpture, a collaboration between The Acton-Boxborough Cultural Council, the town of Acton’s NARA Park, Carolyn Wirth, and myself, was installed after the pond froze last winter. The grant process, town approvals and contract negotiations meant that I could not fabricate […]

The New York Times Op Docs today offered 45 minutes of beautiful wisdom. Humans can cause peace. Bookmark

I haven’t posted here since June for a simple reason: coping with a huge storm of sorts that blew my way. My mother had not been so well, so in January a pacemaker was installed. Rehab and all that. Then April 26th she had a stroke. Rehab again, driven by the delusion of optimism. We […]

The last day of the semester…and for me the last semester, too. For the past fifteen years I’ve been teaching in the Art Department at Middlesex Community College, in Bedford and Lowell, MA. Standing among eighteen new students in each class and encouraging them through fifteen weeks of growth has been an awesome experience. I […]

As I watched the goldfinches at our feeder today something in the next yard startled them. They spurted up and away in various directions. One unfortunate flew toward me and hit the glass of the atrium door, bang! She landed a foot away, wings and tail splayed on the new snow, each feather arrayed in [...]

Miranda and I went on a walk. She was telling me what she thinks about books. Here’s what she said. Topics that some kids like (kids that I know): Fluffy kitty cat books (I hate them completely) Books with some scary moments and action (I personally like these best J) Craft books like how to [...]

This is a little update to what I’ve been doing in the past months involving art, WordPress,  coding and life in general. There’s a few links to useful things I’ve found recently as well.

I now have a new part time job which I am enjoying very much: it’s easily the best job I’ve ever had, and am also in the process of getting ready to move to another area of the country to be with my fiancé. Lets just say life is looking a lot better than it was 2 years ago. I may write a post/essay on that one day if I have nothing better to do with my time (perhaps not then).

I took up my martial arts and yoga again over the past 2 years and sorted a few things out with my confidence and fitness in general which hopefully will one day reflect on my artwork. I can nearly kick my head again, but not quite.

I’ve also been working since last year on a WordPress CMS website project and a picture book project to keep my skills up and learn new things. I will go into more detail as the projects develop later in the year.

Here’s a few useful things I found on the inter-web recently for you as you’ve read this far:

Useful WordPress plugins

PHPEnkoder (automatically encrypts emails on web page to stop email spam)

WP-Cycle (J Query image slide show)

Members (I’m keeping my eye on this one, looks very promising for user management)

Free Software

Backup tool, FreeFileSync (useful for flash drives and secondary hard drive backup)

Password manager, KeePass

For Illustration Friday: Cars

I knew when I saw the challenge for this week's Illustration Friday that I wouldn't be able to resist giving cars another try! All I can say is that I truly take my hat off to France (wagonized) whom I've mentioned before for those gorgeous car drawings, as these autos just aren't easy to draw! Even toy ones ... but I'm enjoying the experiments with the watercolour pencils. Will keep practicing.