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We did it. We moved me out of my apartment in Oklahoma City and back to our home in San Marcos. Of course, thanks to my Galloway genes (that’s my mom’s side of the family) nothing is ever simple and straightforward about such things. I used to wonder about my uncle who seemed to make…

Oh, the challenges of the information age. I do read news from a much wider variety of sources than I used to when I read an actual newspaper. And, thanks to my “strengths” as defined by Clifton, of Learner, Input, I can find myself following a trail of information through Twitter/X or Threads or any…

In 1997, I went to work as Associate Vice President and Dean of Students at SMU. The Vice President was Jim Caswell. I had seen Jim at my first TACUSPA about fifteen years before that and he had become a friend and mentor over the years. I had worked in my new position for about…

This past week was a difficult week for a variety of reasons that don’t matter here because just like this week’s quote, the week passed and this weekend was delightful. A friend from college came into town this weekend. We’ve been in touch again for a few years now, but we don’t get to see each…

Because I’m not silly enough, and there’s not enough going on in the month of November, I decided I would give NANOWRIMO a try again this year. For those who don’t know that particular acronym, it stands for National Novel Writing Month and the idea is to draft the first 50,000 words of a novel…

My early Halloweens were in Oklahoma City. That meant that about half of the time, we had to wear coats over our costumes because it was so cold. But those Halloweens took place so long ago that one of the best places to go was down the street from our house because the woman who…

What’s in your filing cabinet? Or perhaps saved to your hard drive or Cloud storage? Are the drawers or folders filled with wonders that you return to daily? Or are they cluttered with junk you don’t even remember finding interesting or useful? I have to admit, I still like paper for many things and a…

Once upon a time… Magic words because they signal the beginning of something special – a story is about to be told. According to Wikipedia this phrase has been used in some form since at least 1380 and was the traditional opening for “oral narratives” by 1600. Wikipedia lists equivalents in about 60 languages (Habia…

When did you find your career? Did you know what you wanted to do from a young age or are you still trying to discover the answer to the perennial question of what to do with this life of ours? I spent all of college not knowing the answer to what came next. When I…

This past weekend, I spent three full days with a group of writers at a retreat. We wrote in the morning, had a class in the afternoon and a couple of author chats over lunch. It was great fun! As I drove home Monday thinking about this weekend and the newsletter, I began to wonder…