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Photo by Ryan Hutton on Unsplash Hello Writers!   Do you ever experience a confluence of seemingly unrelated events that makes you stop and think the universe is telling you something? Like all lines are converging into one point? Like it’s more than just the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (e.g., when you want to buy a Kia Sorento and all of sudden ...

  Photo by Holly Hinson   Hello Writers!   Women Who Write is more than a writing group, and words have more power than most give them credit for. Sometimes, the ordinary moment can become extraordinary. Jodi was a first-timer at a recent meeting. The meeting was only medium-full and not many writers had signed up to read, but Jodi ...

Photo by Liz Roach-Smith   Hello Writers!   When I came upon the shell necklace among my dead grandmother’s jewelry, I felt as if I’d walked into a fairytale. It looked straight out of The Little Mermaid. Even for a cynical teenager, the necklace stirred my imagination. Not least because it didn’t fit Grandmother’s style. Its simplicity, its plainness, its ...

Photo by Alonso Reyes on Unsplash   Hello Writers!   My newest favorite book (because you can’t have just one favorite) is Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson. I read it two years ago at the very beginnings of my autistic journey, and it just so happened that Tress is very autistically coded: logical, with justice sensitivity and ...

  Image by Michelle Pitzel from Pixabay   Hello Writers! Back in my very distant childhood, June was freedom from the stress of being the perfect, well-behaved student. At last, no worries about finishing homework, finding someone to sit with at lunch, or whether my best friend was talking to me that day. The summer of 1965, I was 13 ...

Photo by Atilla Bingöl on Unsplash   Hello Writers!   Maya Angelou said, “Every storm runs out of rain.” April was not shy of rain. As a matter of fact, April exceeded her typical showers and brought us catastrophic flooding. Fortunately, I wasn’t in an area impacted by the rains, but I’ve certainly felt the emotional rise of floodwater. The ...

Photo from Istock Hello Writers!   Teaching Old Dogs… I haven’t set foot in a college classroom for 18 years, but for some reason, I don’t feel anxious at all, even as I clock the fact that everyone except the professor is clearly in their early 20s while I am dangling here on the precipice of 60. In fact, I ...

Photo by Liz Roach Smith   Hello Writers! In Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin writes: “No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.” Cooking is alchemy, bringing together disparate ...

  Photo by Margarida Afonso on Unsplash Hello Writers! When was the last time you tried something new? The last few weeks, I’ve been learning how to crochet. I’ve read a book from the yarn shop and watched many YouTube videos. I’ve been to Michael’s more than once for different sized hooks and different types of yarn. I’ve stayed up ...

  Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash Happy New Year, Writers! As we whirl with vim and vigor into a new year, and I turn over load after load of laundry from holiday houseguests, I can’t help but think about my New Year’s resolutions. What will I resolve to do in 2025? And….this is where I get stuck. It feels ...