Received bronze medals:

NOLA Gals has been awarded a Bronze Medal in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards. Awards ceremony in Traverse City, MI in November.

Just notified that NOLA Gals won a Bronze Medal in the Readers’ Favorite Competition. I am invited to the Awards ceremony in Miami in November.

The play adaptation of NOLA Gals called Turbulence is completed and in the hands of several possible venues for production soon. Can’t wait to see all the characters come to life on stage.

I’ll be back as Writer-in-Residence at the Beverly Hills Academy this fall. Looking forward to another year of writing with those great kids and their teacher, Sara Coyle.

Happy to announce that I will be Writer-in-Residence for both Waterford Schools, MI and Beverly Hills Academy, MI in the fall. I will be working with professional development with teachers and in classrooms with students, using my novel, NOLA Gals as a starting point. Should be great fun and very rewarding.

Fall of 2017 will find me as Writer-in-Residence for Beverly Hills Academy and Hazel Park Junior High. Great fun! Turbulence, the play adaptation of NOLA Gals is ready for publication. The 8th graders at Beverly Hills Academy did its first read-through with me and made some great suggestions for revision, including a vote for the alternative ending. Thanks to Sara Coyle and her students! Hazel Park teacher, Toby Gordon will be adding NOLA Gals to the 8th grade curriculum. Together we will produce the official Reader’s Guide for the book. I’ll be working there with both NOLA Gals and To Kill a Mockingbird. They may also produce Turbulence for the first time!

On July 10th I presented a workshop on Finding Poetry Across the Curriculum at Nerd Camp in Parma, Michigan. What a great conference. So many fabulous authors there with a strong dose of diversity! And it’s free to participants! Check it out next summer.

I’ll be back at the Rochester Hills Barnes & Noble for their Teen Book Fest September 23.

I’ll also be out in Ortonville this fall visiting home school kids with Lisa Best Taddiken.

On July 20, I was a guest at The Traffic Jam in Detroit with the book club of Vasteree Carter. Great fun!

I continue to work on the draft of my new adult psychological thriller, The Girl from the USO. It takes place in 1941 in the Detroit area and in Cornwall, England. I am using all my family war stories, especially the love story of my mom and dad, plus lots of research, my favorite part of writing. I hope to complete the draft by the end of summer.

Tomorrow I’m off for my annual trek to Stratford, Canada. I’ll be seeing three plays this weekend. Can’t wait!

The McGuffin will publish my memory piece. The Russians Are Coming in its Vol. 34-2 issue. It’s a remembrance of being 6-years-old and terrified of Sister Bartholomew, a formidable nun I had for catechism back in the 50s. Thanks to Anne-Marie Oomen who helped me write about this memory in her memoir workshop at Alcona, MI a few summers back.

I have applied for membership in The Detroit Working Writers (DWW) after attending their workshop last fall. I was accepted!

I have finished writing my second novel, The Girl from the USO. It is an adult psychological thriller and I have entered it in the Staunch Prize Competition,  a British contest. The winner will be announced in November. Fingers crossed.

My memory piece, The Russians Are Coming… appeared in the spring issue of The MacGuffin.

My next project will be a collection of poetry as yet untitled which will tell the story of my family on both sides tracing back to the 1800s. I have bins of family history chocked full of letters, photos and documents to draw from. I even have two wedding dresses dating back to 1869 and 1920.

After 50 years in education as a teacher, writer-in-residence, and consultant, I have retired. Special thanks to Sara Coyle and the middle school kids at Beverly Hills Academy for making my last years in education such a pleasure. Now I will spend most of my time writing. The rest of my hours will be spent reading, theatre-going, being an aunt, and hanging out with Gracie, my cat. My novel, The Girl from the USO is now making its way through a maze of agents and publishers. Fingers crossed that my story will be out for readers this year.

Exciting News. The Wild Rose Press will be publishing my adult literary suspense novel, The Girl from the USO. I am currently waiting for the second round of edits and the cover artwork to be done by artist, Abigail Owen. I got to make a suggestion for the cover. Let’s see if she agrees. The novel takes place in 1941 Detroit and Cornwall, England. The beginning chapters are loosely base on my dad & mom’s meeting, courtship and marriage during WWII. Then the plot thickens and the romance goes awry, veering away from their real story. The novel is keeping me busy during the corona virus pandemic. My cat, Gracie and I are hunkered down under the Stay-at-Home order in Michigan.

I have a new position as Program Chair for Detroit Working Writers (DWW). I get to put my imagination to work dreaming up literary fun activities for the group. My first idea was a series of three nights of readings by DWW authors based around the three genres of Fantasy and Sci Fi, YA/MG, and Memoir. The series was co-sponsored by the Royal Oak Public Library and WROK cable. Alas, the Virus stopped the series called Springing to Mind. Hoping to reschedule for fall.

Looking forward to Rochester Writers Fall Conference in October if the virus allows. As the winner of Best of Show at their last conference for my piece, Full of Grace, I received cash, plus a free admission to the October 2020 conference. Gracie, my cat, the heroine of the winning piece and I shared the cash prize. She got a new catnip toy and a special meal.

The week of April 27 I’ll be teleporting into the language arts class of Mrs. Sara Coyle at Beverly Hills Academy. Eighth graders there have read my novel NOLA Gals so we should have a great cyber discussion of Grace and Essence and their struggles to survive Hurricane Katrina.