Dogs represent the very best of God’s creation.
The Best Books about PTSD and Overcoming Oppression of the Human Spirit
My father retired from the Marines before he married my mother. Sadly, he was more drill instructor to me than father. He never shared with me his… Read more “The Best Books about PTSD and Overcoming Oppression of the Human Spirit”
What I Learned from My Puppies
I want nothing more than to give them good lives, happy lives, a yard in which to romp, the koi pond with frogs to delight them, and fireflies on hot summer nights.
Securely Insecure
We are born insecure, and never, some of us, outgrow it.
Reading: A Dying Pleasure
I read recently an opinion that blamed today’s dwindling love of reading on Dick and Jane.
Proud to be an American
To understand where America is today you must look at its history, not erase it…
Life, Living, and Death: Random Thoughts
I wonder: Does anyone ever really embrace death, look back upon their existence as a life well-lived, gas gauge on empty and but two cents to their name?
A Veteran of Veterans Day
I sit on the patio this Veterans Day 2020. The temperature is not quite so warm as it was yesterday—71 unseasonable degrees then—but it’s dry and the… Read more “A Veteran of Veterans Day”
No. 64
I sit this morning, on the eve of my sixty-fourth birthday, sipping coffee and smoking a cigar, lost in retrospect.
Bringing Truth to Fiction
I knew that The Girl Who Loved Cigars would challenge me beyond anything I’d written previously.
Will She Soar?
Young Marla is haunted by nightmares of being in the womb, terrified by the prospect of having her whole life—everything she’ll ever have and everything she ever will be—taken from her.
Racism Systemic?
I feared one of my nurses, not because she was Black, but because of what she was going to do with that bag of water connected by a hose to a nozzle that looked, to me, as big as a Louisville Slugger.
Literary Worry
I worry. That’s what I do. Usually about what I can’t control. Which is silly. But I learned it from my mother.
COVID-19 and the Lock Down
You think Capitalism is evil. Well, you just got a peek, these last several months under the lock down, of what socialism looks like.
The Girl Who Loved Cigars
“Oh, Marrrla, you’re a virgin. Just like Mother Mary. I so hoped you would be.” Grinning, he added, “I’m so blessed to be your first.” Then, glancing at the crucifix above my headboard, he added, “Thank you, Jesus, for allowing me this teaching moment.”
Grief a Choice
Grief is normal, it’s even healthy—to an extent. There is no treatment for it, no vaccine to prevent it.
The Choices We Make
If life is a series of choices, a variety of paths we take, why does it seem that the universe so often plays favorites, beckoning to the privileged few, “Take this path to fame, fortune, or power, to love and happiness”?
The Glamour of Socialism
Nothing about socialism is good. It’s based on the premise that government can make better decisions for the people than the people can for themselves.
The Waiting is Hell
I pulled up my Outlook calendar on January 2 and was struck by the year: 2020.
“Method” Writing Vs. “Character” Writing
So, I ask, how can a writer write believably without, like a method actor, relying on their own personal experiences?
J. Conrad Guest, Michigan Novelist 