Last weekend my husband and I went to a class in the Artisan Series at Montrio Bistro in Monterey. We found it particularly interesting because, although we love beer and have visited microbreweries, we had not been to a seminar on the art and craft of making beer and studying the different types of brews.
There were two different...
Seattle: A Blast from the Past
On a recent trip to Seattle, in lightly falling snow, I took a guided walking tour of the city’s mid-19th century “underground” origins: its musty subterranean passageways of abandoned toilets, pipes, cast-off furniture and windows that once were the main first-floor storefronts of old downtown Seattle. Like layers of fossils built one...
“Departures”–“Between Life and Death”
For a guest lecture I am preparing for a course, “Philosophy through the Movies”, I decided to select the Academy Award® Winner for Best Foreign Language Film of 2009, “Departures”, (Japanese title: “Okuribito”, lit. “a person sent out or dispatched”), a look into the in-between of life and...
BLOOD LOTUS: Discovering New Voices in Literature and Art
I discovered the online journal, Blood Lotus, while doing a Google search for submitting my short stories to small boutique journals. While spending hours looking for an appropriate fit for my edgy short stories about growing up with wounds, both healed and unhealed, I discovered this literary and quarterly gem. Blood Lotus, established in...
Eleven Tips for Women’s Memoirs on 1/11/11
Thousands of us love reading of all kinds: fiction, history, memoir. Sometimes all three are combined into one glorious book. We all know someone who is writing: a novel, a blog, a series of poems, a mystery, children’s book, cookbook, screenplay and more. And everyone knows someone in a readers’ or writers’ group. Now there is one website...
“Wine Shop At Home”—The Art of Wine “Gifting”
It’s that time of year again, when all of us curmudgeonly folks have to think about that tired old ritual of gift giving. Each year I try to figure out what to give—a thoughtful gift which will be enjoyed, something original or unexpected. But, I think I am the world’s worst gift-giver. I love any gift given to me, and I have very...

