When John left Big Bend, putting his cowboy days behind him, he moved to Sonora with his childhood sweetheart, Virginia (the “Ginnie” of my book). There, he began raising long-haired Angora goats, his initial herd of 1,500 growing by leaps and bounds,…
I’m still experimenting with blackout poetry. Here’s one I made from today’s newsfeed. ****************************** In these long, vacant hours, we will have to learn to sit with ourselves and discover glory and meaning in stillness. Or, at the very least,…
Daddy asked me to write this book. “You’ve got to do it,” he said. I was eight or nine at the time. “The story will be lost unless you write it down. People will forget. No one will have heard of John Ward, and…
One day back in the 30’s, the oat field out front of the house became, for one afternoon, a landing strip for a real, honest-to-goodness biplane. The pilot, out of gas spied the field just in time to land. As…
People who look at this old picture always ask why the hat is hanging down my back. Well, there was a string on it, that’s why! And the string was because the horse always held his breath. I’d go to…
Some wonderful old letters my grandmother kept in her jewelry box since God knows when. Gracious sentiments from a day when folks put real effort into their letters, and recipients saved them as keepsakes. Life was uncertain. Any letter you…
It’s a tall order, writing first person narrative through the eyes of a sixteen year-old boy. Especially a boy who lives in 1885, in rural Texas. (I’m a city girl, myself). Every word, (even curses, slang, terms of endearment) must…
To write this novel, I had to create some good, solid characters. Characters of three-dimensions—flesh-and-blood-and bone, with their own back stories, habits and ideas about the world. Because if the characters don’t feel real, you won’t embrace their story. My…
“Indian marker trees…were the first ‘road signs…’ Marker trees were bent to guide travelers to significant locations such as campsites, water sources, river crossings, and other important natural features.” – Carol Dawson with Roger Allen Polson, Miles and Miles of Texas…
My novel is set in 1886, on a Big Bend ranch, south of the town of Marathon. As best I can tell from my fairly diligent research, Marathon at that time had roughly 50 inhabitants, and the local watering hole…