The township of Tom Price was full of interesting characters with different motivations. Some were there simply for the money, while others were trying to disappear from a former life.
Pissy was a vet from WWII who survived 90-something missions as a navigator on a Lancaster bomber. He carried plenty of scars from shrapnel suffered when [...]

As someone who is ultra-busy and on a budget, I’m always looking for ways to both eat healthily and save some money, so more often than not, I ‘brown bag’ it. My kids often take sandwiches to school and summer camp, too. I’m guessing I’m a lot like many of you in that respect, so [...]

Look, I write the way I speak. I am no grammar nazi, by any stretch of the imagination, but this stuff really bugs me. I don’t know why, it just DOES:
1. supposebly
It’s “SUPPOSEDLY.” That’s a “D,” not a “B.”
2. I could care less
If you COULD care less, then please, by all means, DO. It’s “I [...]

When I was growing up, my grandparents had a mechanical mantle clock built in 1967 that would play the Westminster Quarters on the quarter hour. I loved it, and even though they usually kept the chimes turned off, they turned them on when I was visiting. So when I moved out on my own, Grandma [...]

Here in Seattle, it’s known as Soak ‘Em* and back in 1979, when I was in the seventh grade, it was more brutal than any other game our emotionally damaged gym teacher could select from his vast trunk of torturous and humiliating activities. Hands down, Soak ‘Em was more painful than touch football, more dangerous [...]

We are supposed to be a nation of tolerance. If you criticise someone for being gay, for being fat, for being black or being female you will (quite rightly) cop a severe tongue lashing for your lack of empathy. However, apparently it’s quite okay to criticise people for being thin.
The phrase ‘real women have curves’ [...]

_____________________________________________________
How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson
_____________________________________________________
Gibson’s debut novel appealed to me on many levels – as a writer, as a teacher, as an observer of human minutiae, as a person who grew up on NY’s Long Island, and as a long time Gatsby fan. The plot revolves around a [...]

Swine flu – it’s all the papers and the radio are full of at the moment. Apparently our government is ‘fully prepared’ for the outbreak, which as anyone who has lived here for any length of time can tell you, is government speak for, “We’re completely f*cked”. Since apparently most people in the world [...]

I like to examine both sides of an argument before I write an opinion, and while I fully admit I’m no expert, I do make the effort to make comparisons to history whenever possible before wading into the debate.
Lately however, I’ve found it rather difficult to get two sides of any political conversation. My more [...]

3:09 A.M.
I sat up suddenly in bed and squinted through the darkness. Marley shook his head, jangling his tags to let me know he was also awake.
“How long have you been up, Bubby?”
Marley just sighed. I heard him stand and walk towards the bedroom door.
“OK, Bubby, just a second,” I slipped out of bed and [...]

Like most of the other men in his company, James Lyons had never been in battle. A former slave, he had joined the 8th United States Colored Troops in Philadelphia only four months earlier. He was proud to call himself free, but claiming freedom didn’t come without problems. There weren’t a lot of jobs available, [...]

Connie’s friend, ‘Laurie’, had lost her husband to cancer and Connie was doing all she could to help. Some time had passed, and the opportunity to attend a Christian women’s conference presented itself. Hoping it would help Laurie get back into life, Connie invited her to attend, and much to her delight, Laurie agreed.
The two [...]

What makes a writer undoubtedly good? Is it creativity? Is it imagination? Or, is it personal experience? When is it easier for a writer to put thoughts, emotions, and ideas smoothly and effortlessly into valid sentences? Are there any periods in a writer’s life when the act of writing seems like the easiest thing [...]

It’s fashionable at the moment to present the world as diving into chaos and to claim we are suffering ever-reducing personal standards and that, as a result, governments should legislate away every last bit of free will in the misguided theory that to do so means all their new rules will be followed without [...]

Sometimes I really do wonder what goes on in the heads of celebrities, and nothing demonstrates the weirdness that is celeb-world more than Madonna. Some people when their marriage goes belly up buy a new car, get their hair restyled, buy a new pair of posh shoes, but Madonna trumps all others by buying…another Malawian [...]