I’m so glad you found me. This is your site for news, information, progress on the series, accolades, opinions and rants (yes both Emma and her creator can be snarky at times), whines, and the sharing of important information. Let’s get to know each other better. Stick around and enjoy the ride, and please feel free to contact me by leaving comments on the blog page.
As an author, I love nothing more than to write. But once a book is published, it needs to be shared. Please pre-order your copy of The Man Who Wasn’t There, or catch up on Emma’s adventures in The Difficult Sister” or it’s prequel, “An Unholy Alliance” today. You can order ALL THREE at a discounted price. And, I will be happy to personally inscribe any books ordered here. As always, THANKS for your support.
Every writer has a journey that each of their characters must take.
The State of the State In western Oregon, summer has arrived with a couple of very warm days followed by some very East Coast thunderstorms. Rest and repeat. Today is the longest day of the year, so happy Solstice everyone! I’ve made Chicken Paprikash twice since we returned from our Grand Tour of the Danube. […]
Read MoreThe State of the State Having enjoyed two weeks in a different world, it has taken a bit of time to get back on my feet. As I wrote my April newsletter, I was headed to Europe and I anticipated I know not what. There would be the river cruise down the Danube, plus time […]
Read MoreThe State of the State Unless I break something between now and Tuesday morning, the die is cast. Long-awaited trip to Parts Unknown–for me at least. Wynne and I are flying out of Portland, taking a nonstop to Amsterdam, from there to Prague. I have never been there, but my late son Ian loved the […]
Read MoreThe State of the State I left y’all last month on the cusp of my trip to Tucson. If I went there to get sunshine, I was sorely disappointed. During my time there, more than two inches of water dumped from the sky–just like home. It was worse in Oregon, where there were snow flurries […]
Read MoreThe State of the State Yes, well, it’s been more like April than early February around here, which is more than a little scary. Trees are budding out, and I saw daffodils blooming today while on a walk. Eagles won the Super Bowl. Robert Mueller continues his silent quest. I head for Tucson in a […]
Read MoreThe State of the State The holidays are past. Thank goodness. They were fine, except for a few last minute glitches from the weather. Nothing serious. A little ice. Lots of good food and a bit of traditional music and bright lights. Significant infusions of butter. For me, looking back on the year that was […]
Read MoreThe State of the State Imagine a morning in early December, to paraphrase Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory”. “A coming of winter morning….” Today is such a morning, dry, with thin sunshine and a distinct chill to the air. Christmas season is in full swing. I have alerted my friends that there will be no […]
Read MoreThe state of the State A major birthday has come and gone. I, for one, am glad it’s gone. The new 40 this one is not. In three days, the weather has gone from sunshine and autumn leaves to dark skies and snow in the Cascades. October was filled with wonderful friends… and art. Portland […]
Read MoreThe State of the State Unapologetically late…as usual…I am fondly remembering a fabulous trip to Washington D.C. four years ago with three of my nearest and dearest. We spent the most fabulous week there exploring the city–mostly those little museums along the Mall, the Capitol, a reception in Sen. Jeff Merkeley’s office, trips to Olde […]
Read MoreMusings and reviews of theatrical plays.
We are the secretaries and we do things secretarial And once a month we kill a guy and cut him up for burial It’s a slasher play. It’s a comedy. No, it’s a black and bloody satire. It’s over the top. And it’s dangerous–particularly if one is a lumberjack in Big Bone, Oregon. It’s […]
Read MoreMarch, 1959. In a run-down bar in South Philly, the celebrated jazz singer Billie Holiday gives what will be one of her last performances. It’s difficult to watch her take the stage. Brought low by drugs and alcohol, she moves like a woman twice her 44 years. She shuffles around a bit, removes her mink […]
Read MoreWhen a tall, dark stranger, Anthony (Blake Stone) walks into Caroline’s (Emily Eisele) bedroom unannounced and uninvited, carrying a book and some kind of fried snack, she does what any normal teenage girl would do. She screams. And then she unloads on him verbally. She’s good at that. In Lauren Gunderson‘s I and You, now playing […]
Read MoreIt’s the mid-1970s, Portland, Oregon. At the Left Hook Boxing Club in the Albina neighborhood of North Portland, the club’s owner, Ty (Jasper Howard) sits in a squeaky desk chair at a card table. His old friend Bo (Anthony P. Armstrong) shows up to pass the time, and the talk moves from sex to urban […]
Read MoreLou Bellamy, director of Portland Playhouse‘s current production Fences, accurately describes August Wilson‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning play as “the ‘thunder’ that is Fences”. And thunder it is, from the moment Troy Maxson (Lester Purry) and his friend Jim Bono (Bryant Bentley) walk onto the stage in the first act, the audience knows a storm is brewing. It […]
Read MoreNightclub singer Deloris Van Cartier (Kristin Robinson) had no plans to devote a chunk of her life to staying in a convent. But in Sister Act, Lakewood Theatre‘s last production of the 2017-2018 season, that is exactly what happens. It’s Christmas Eve 1977, somewhere in Philadelphia, and convents are the last thing on Deloris’s mind. Indeed, […]
Read MoreTwo men walk into a bar. It’s Belfast, 2009. In the play Quietly by Owen McCafferty, now playing at Corrib Theatre, barkeep Robert (Murri Lazaroff-Babin), a young man from Poland, is watching the World Cup on the telly and fielding texts from his girlfriend. Jimmy (Ted Rooney) is the first to arrive. He was raised Catholic, […]
Read MoreAlways…Patsy Cline, created and originally directed by Ted Swindley, is a big favorite at Tigard’s Broadway Rose Theatre Company. As of last Friday night, this is the third time Broadway Rose has welcomed it to the stage–and the show is better than ever. This also is the third time Nashville artist Sara Catherine Wheatley has […]
Read MoreWhen four white people–an earnest vegan, a militant new-ager, a frustrated history teacher, and a paid actress–get together to produce a culturally sensitive play about the first Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Month…well, it gives one pause. In the World Premiere of Larissa FastHorse‘s fast-paced satire The Thanksgiving Play at Artists Repertory Theatre, four […]
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