A Writer’s Life

A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to make it into a special, yearlong writing class offered through StoryStudioChicago, a writing center located in the Windy City. The class, called “Novel-in-A-Year,” was to be led by one of … Read More

In the early 1970s, I was a young bride earnestly making a new home out of an old farmhouse seven miles from the nearest town (Winterset, Iowa, county seat of Madison County). Not yet a mother or a quilter, my … Read More

Once upon a time, while meandering through the Egyptian Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, I noticed an elevated sarcophagus—without a lid. “Goodness,” I thought, “a person could easily reach up, drop any sort of … Read More

Last year, I mentioned in a post that my (unpublished) short story (“My Ashes at The Met”)* had been adapted into a feature film by Jack C. Newell. In the now completed movie, titled MONUMENTS, a bereaved young man (Ted) … Read More

For several years, now, as I’ve pursued my love of fiction—as a writer rather than a reader—I’ve taken lots of classes, most of them at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival in Iowa City, a production of the University of Iowa, … Read More

As those who know me know, I spent a decades-long career in the world of the American quilt—designing, writing, teaching, publishing, traveling the U.S. (and beyond) to connect with quilters everywhere and help them hone their skills. Writing—in the quilting … Read More