Maybe the Grimm brothers didn’t set out to kill women’s stories, but they did. Here’s what happened: Rumpenstünzchen was a spinning tale, part of a large number of spinning tales that European women shared while spinning and weaving flax into cloth, an arduous task that was usually done in the evening after all the other tasks were completed (children cared for, meals fixed, animals fed, eggs sold, laundry washed—you get the...

Read More

Most people remember events tied to a strong emotion, smell, or some other sensual detail. That’s especially true of first memories. Mine is a box of kittens my father brought home. I was two and a half, maybe three-years-old. I don’t remember why he had a box of kittens, where they came from, or whether we kept them. What I remember are the sensations–the fur, the claws, the smells, the sounds, and how they squirmed when I...

Read More

Don’t be fooled. The little folk of fairytale and fable are the keepers of the wisdom. What’s more, they’re not stuffy about it. Worldwide, no matter the tradition, folk tales challenge the norm, encourage creative problem-solving, even question who you are in order for you to grow into someone else. We need these stories. Proof is in the fact that if our families don’t provide, we will look elsewhere for them. I have a...

Read More

Bozeman, Montana author and friend, M Mark Miller and I have been having a discussion about good stories. Thought I’d let you listen in . . . Of course you’re welcome to borrow my tagline: “All good stories are true. Some of them contain facts.” But I must disagree with your assertion that “all good stories are stolen.”  If what you mean is that writers of good stories should expect others repeat them, then we have no quarrel....

Read More

First time I saw tiger lilies, I was visiting an elderly friend of my mother’s who had a row of them blooming along her driveway.They were so bright and colorful they took my breath away; I remember feeling stunned at such beauty. I wanted my mother to notice, but she was busy, doing adult things, I don’t remember what. I was six-years-old, and might as well have lived in a different universe. However, the lady noticed. She made my...

Read More

“Woolgathering?” my granddaughter asked. I grew up on a sheep ranch in Idaho. She’s currently living in a high-rise apartment in Toronto. Woolgathering n. Absent-minded indulgence in fanciful daydreams–adj. Indulging in fancies; absent-minded. The American Heritage Dictionary that resides on my desk doesn’t even include a definition for the real-life activity that gave its name to dreams. Poor people used to wander...

Read More