Category: Uncategorized

  • My First Travel Adventure

    In 1962, my parents bought a Ford “Econoline” camper van, hitched a trailer containing all their worldly possessions, loaded up their three young children, and drove from Connecticut to California to start a new life. I had just turned five years old at the time, and I don’t remember too…

  • Observatory Observations

    Observatories and planetarium shows have fascinated me all my life. When John and I stopped in Flagstaff, Arizona on a road trip a few years ago, we had the pleasure of visiting the Lowell Observatory on a clear summer night. We got to peer through one of the telescopes and…

  • Ready for Tea and Treats?

    Are you are in the mood for something fun to read — a fantasy book without all those grimdark characters and pesky, world-threatening plotlines? Then check out our new cozy high fantasy novel. It’s clean, light-hearted, gentle fantasy. I have been jokingly calling it “Susan and John light.” It’s a…

  • Fun With Fellow Authors

    What’s more exciting than going to a writers’ conference? Attending a conference that is specifically designed for self-published authors. In mid-October, I attended the Self-Publishing Live conference in North Carolina. (Fortunately, the area around the conference hotel was not damaged by the recent hurricane. Some of the local businesses we…

  • A Blog on Fog

    Yesterday morning, I went for a walk in the fog. While the San Diego County coastal region often gets a “marine layer” of low morning clouds, a heavy ground fog is not as common. As I often do while I am walking, I thought about writing. With all those heavy…

  • We’re Keeping the Ruff Part

    In our upcoming book, John and I will do something different from our previous novels. We’re writing under a pen name. Why switch to a pen name after four years of publishing fantasy novels? We’re doing it to avoid confusion. Up until now, our novels have fit mostly into either…

  • It’s Not Really a Boxed Set

    No matter how many times I click the “publish” button for a new book on Amazon, the experience still fills me with a rush of excitement and anxiety. You’d think that after four years and four novels, it would grow routine, but it never does. Yesterday, we published the ebook…

  • Cities of Legend

    On a recent trip to New York City, we started from Battery Park and cruised out to see the Statue of Liberty. Even before I looked at a map, I knew that the Bronx was “up” and the Battery was “down.” How did I know? Because of a song. Few…

  • Fiction Writing as a Group Activity

    Some solo activities lend themselves well to working around others. Quilting, for example, is always more fun when done in a room with other quilters. Even when each participant is working on a separate project, being in the same place as people engaging in similar tasks provides a spirit of…

  • Five Memorable Walks

    When you love both walking and traveling, it’s fun to read about memorable hikes. Often, the articles I’ve read describe superlatives: “The Five Best Hikes in the World” or “The Five Most Dangerous Trails in the Country” or “The Five Most Beautiful Walks in the State.” My post today is…