Don’t you just love those long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn’t just an hour—but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands—and who knows what to do with it? Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire I found this quote painted on the wall in the entrance to Gallier House, a…

During my recent visit to New Orleans, I visited the Botanical Garden in City Park several times, both to photograph the gardens and attend an early evening Motown concert in the Pavilion of Two Sisters. The Botanical Garden dates from the original WPA-funded rose garden, planted in 1936. The art deco influences of the period…

I write in the kitchen, under the supervision of my two standard poodles. I do my best, more creative writing standing up, though I spread my manuscript on the kitchen table for paper edits.

In What the Artist Left Behind and the Jericho stories, the center of Lizzie’s life is her home, Lavender Cottage. This is a detailed description I wrote, which I deleted from the book.

A spruce hedge screened the yard from adjoining properties. It sloped downhill toward a stone retaining wall, with steps into Juliet’s section of…

I’ve been carrying around the characters of Lizzie Christopher and Nick Cameron for years. They’ve aged, worked in their respective professions, married spouses and had children. In my novels, they are both widowed, meet, and tentatively start merging their lives. During a major birthday year, I finally created a Word document, labeled it Chapter One,…

Colleges are in session and the leaves are starting to turn. On Labor Day, I always think of the restaurant job I had on Cape Cod during my college summers. I did much of my morning prep work at a picnic table on a screened porch adjacent to the walk in refrigerator. A large horse…