TRIP to Illinois

 

 

Son Davis, Doug, and me at the finish line

ILLINOIS ADVENTURE

 

Last week I was traveling with Doug in Illinois. He ran the Chicago Marathon, a highlight after his months of training. Following the Marathon, we left Chicago and visited family and friends and got together with Doug’s former school mates.

 

A big city such as Chicago is no place for a stranger who doesn’t know her way around (that’s me). The only way I managed the logistics of finding our hotel, parking for the car, McCormick Place’s reception, Grant Park, and the runner’s route was with the help of two sons who came to Chicago to be with us. Needless to say, the city is a jungle of cars and pedestrians. We depended on GPS for every move we made.

 

Me & Lola at Water Tower Place, a ghost of what it once was

It’s easy to see why big cities are attractive to most people. You don’t have to look for excitement. You’re surrounded by it. And if you don’t hustle along with everybody else, you may be run over. And there’s a beauty in skyscrapers and blocks of ever-changing scenery.

 

Aside from the tension of always being one step away from stranded, I was reminded of another pitfall --the cost, that is to say you need deep pockets. For example, a glass of house wine in our hotel cost $17.50. 

Jason, Me, Lola at Bahai Temple in WIlmette

 

After Chicago, we drove to LaSalle Peru, a town in the middle of vast fields of corn and soybeans. The drive west from the city took us through farmland that couldn’t have a more different landscape. There’s also a beauty to wide open spaces with a horizon of corn fields.

 

Doug & I at Starved Rock

Reunions are usually fraught with mixed feelings, happiness at seeing friends again but bewilderment because time passes so fast.

 

Doug & me at LaSalle Peru HS alumni get-together

We’re back in Lexington. For two nights I have slept 11 hours, a record for me. Trips are somewhat like reunions. They bring gladness for the experience but sadness that it’s over.

 

 

Art Sketches Submitted

 

SKETCHES TO THE SHOW

 

Yesterday I took to the Cantey building on the State Fairgrounds the two drawings I’m submitting for the art show during the SC State Fair. One is a face—I enjoy drawing faces more than anything else—and the other is a vase with wilted tulips. The show is curated, so I’ll be lucky to get mine accepted.

 

Sketching is relaxing and gives my brain a break. My favorite medium is colored pencils. I’d like to become more accomplished with acrylics. Mixing acrylic colors is a challenge. Also, I haven’t learned gradations for making a painting complex. Everything I’ve done so far is flat, flat, flat….

 

There’s a collection of coloring books in my house, and I enjoy them, especially the Halloween and Christmas ones. It’s even more fun when I can get one of the grandkids to color with me.

 

Festival wrap

    FLAME-OUT

Yesterday’s Festival

 

The wash-out was my sweat-soaked underwear. Most people on the grounds at the Arts & Crafts Market were the vendors. Few customers showed up, hours went by with barely any traffic… and with good reason.

 

When Doug and I were driving out the gate at 4:00 PM, the thermometer on the dash read 100 degrees.

 

The vendors on either side of us kept their battery-operated fans running on high. Without one, we sweltered. There were moments when I felt like my body temp had hit stoke territory. I took breaks and sat in our air conditioned truck.

 

We didn’t predict such incredible heat (not to mention humidity) in mid September. The take-away for me is that I need to update my weather expectations based on changes brought about by global warming. Don’t know the effect unseasonably hot weather will have on future outdoor festivals. It will have an effect on whether I participate in them.

 

,

 

Poetry at Fall Market

 

MEETING AT THE MARKET

 

Yesterday at the Fall Arts & Crafts Market while selling copies of my books I met Jacob, a senior at Irmo High School, who took an interest in my poetry chapbook Time Carries All Things Away. Jacob is a senior, taking a class with poetry and doing his own research. He plans to go into performing arts, and his bright brain will get him there if he has any luck.

 

Poetry gets a bad rep because it’s either simplistic or inscrutable. If you have an advanced degree in poetry, you may be able to decipher Milton, Yeates, or even Langston Hughes. The ordinary person has to read a while to find meaningful poetry in what is published today. This isn’t meant as criticism, it’s an observation. Poetry, like any branch of knowledge, takes shape in a range of forms.

 

But coming back to my conversation with Jacob and what got me to thinking. I wrote Time Carries All Things Away because there are things and people I don’t want to give up, even though their time has passed. Moments, some of them long since gone, were life-confirming or life-challenging, and poetry is a way for me to remember them.

 

That is to say, Time Carries All Things Away is like an album of peak moments and the peak may be heaven ward or hell ward.

 

readers & writers

 

Barbara Evers, Fantasy writer 

SPOTLIGHT ON LOCAL AUTHORS

 

I sat in on Readers & Writers lunch and book presentation Tuesday at Zorba’s Greek Restaurant in Columbia. Barbara Evers talked about her fantasy trilogy, The Watchers of Moniah. Barbara began with an enthusiastic advocacy of giraffes, not that her books promote giraffes, but they tie into the plot of the book she talked about. 

 

There were about a dozen in the audience, some familiar faces. Readers & Writers is the brainchild of Chris Maw, a faithful supporter of the arts in the Columbia area, especially authors. The event occurs every third Tuesday at 11:30 am, most recently at Zorba’s, but in the past we’ve also met at Lizard’s Thicket. Given the dearth of events featuring local authors, this is a rare find and well worth your time, if you like to meet writers in our midst. It is free and welcomes visitors.

 

It's a casual group, interested in writing.

Midlands Arts & Crafts Market

 

 MARK THE DATE

It’s going to be a perfect day with perfect weather, presumably cooler than now, for an outdoor event—The Fall Arts & Crafts Market on September 19^th & 20th.

 

This market attracts gardeners, cooks, woodworkers, artists, and of course WRITERS (that’s me). You deserve to meet me. Come by my tent and see my set-up on the grassy median.

 

Saturday, 9 am – 4  pm

Sunday 12 noon – 4 pm

Address - 3483 Charleston Highway, West Columbia, SC

Free admission and easy parking.

 

The Market has ramped up this year to over 150 vendors. Come see what you can see (including me) at our Midlands Fall Arts & Crafts Market.

 

ON ANOTHER NOTE: My latest Novel, Béjart's Caravan is going to have a sequel. I've been working on it with the end pulling into sight, of course that's the end of the first draft. Gotta find an editor.

Never enough

 

WANT WORM 

Today, after reading in A Sense of the Mysterious, it seems like I’ve been shortchanged. With so much intelligence in the world, why don’t I have more? For that matter, why don’t I have more physical ability? More creative resources?

I resent that I have been slighted. Is this niggling longing to be more intelligent, more physically capable, more creative wrong? Is this arrogance?

Is this an evil aspect of my nature? That enough is not enough. That limitations are too many.

The tug is toward dislike for myself. As if there are no things to like. I seem to turn a blind eye to what’s good in life, my life.

Is my aggrieved attitude a sign of narcissism? Who am I to question my place in the world?  I don’t want to be a person who doesn’t appreciate my life.  

 

poetic form

 

 

IS IT POETRY OR DOGGEREL?

 

Poets are urged to write verses that reimagine life, rather than report it. We are cautioned against “telling.” Rather, we’re to creatively construct imagery in such a way that the reader can interpret for themselves the poem’s message.

 

However, I find motivation to write some of my poems when I just want to tell the reader something, or it may well be myself I’m writing to. I can know something without knowing that I know it. And when I put words to subconscious knowledge, it becomes conscious and then I want to get it off my chest.

 

 If numerous meanings can be deciphered from the lines, that’s okay, but in this instance, I write with one interpretation in mind, one that I hope to communicate.

 

Below is one of my poems that is an example of what I’m talking about. It addresses the idea that our curiosity and longing to know what we don’t know is a double-edged sword. It brings about our renewal and our destruction.

 

THE EQUATOR

 

To realize what you don’t have

 

initiates inventions

creates consciousness

inspires exploration

causes growth

 

initiates envy

creates violence

inspires wars

causes destruction.

 

 

I know the poem is going against the grain, no imagery…too explicit, but I’m calling it a poem anyway.

 

 

Too Long in the Company of Rain

 

Too Long in the Company of Rain appears in this issue

 

THERE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN LONERS

“Too Long in the Company of Rain” is a short story I wrote that Doubleback Review recently published.

 

I remember stories of my grandmother’s brother, Uncle Ben, who lived alone in a house in the woods and was something of an enigma even to his closest relatives. Never married, no children. If he ever had work of any sort, it wasn’t mentioned. He owned no farm equipment or animals. Didn’t have a car. But he had guns.

 

Though he was a loner, he wasn’t alone in his way of life. At that time, there were people in rural areas with little if any income who subsisted on backyard vegetables or game they trapped or hunted. They lived in timber houses worn to washboard by the weather, usually an inherited home.

 

When you live in a remote area such as this with little interaction with other people, your personality may be affected, and sometimes this is a negative. This gives you an idea about the protagonist of “Too Long in the Company of Rain”.

Doubleback Review publishes pieces that were previously published at journals that have become defunct. I've had a number of stories and poems published by journals that no longer exist, such as the North Atlantic Review, The Binnacle, RiverSedge, Crack the Spine, and The Copperhead Review. 

 

The link to the story is

https://doublebackreview.com/issue-8-1-april-2026/stanard-rain/

 

Read Freely Fest at Richland Library

 

I hope to see you this weekend!

SC’S BIGGEST LOCAL AUTHOR EVENT

IT’S FREE

 

Read Freely Fest

Sat., March 28 (9am – 6pm) & Sun., March 29 (10am – 4pm)

Richland Main Library

1431 Assembly St, Columbia, SC

 

I'LL BE THERE

You’ll find me in “Indie Author Alley” with 30 other authors on the first level of the Library. Author presentations will continue seamlessly throughout the posted hours on both days. Numerous options each hour with shows on the Outdoor Main Stage, in the Auditorium, and in the Theater. This includes talks by writers of romantic reads, mysteries, graphic novels, and nonfiction. It’s a chance to meet and share ideas with other readers and writers. Check out the schedule.

https://www.readfreelyfest.com/schedule

 

BUY A BOOK

Also, check out the Library’s book sale with its selection of used books for readers of all ages, all priced at $1 each.

 

Don’t miss with this opportunity! Catch up on SC authors and genres, pick up a new signed book or buy a $1 used one, and most important, support your local talented writers.

 

I hope to see you there!

 

A.I. writing test

 

The hand of the future?

 

 AI vs Human Writing

I was shocked that I preferred A.I.’s excerpts to actual human writing in a recent NYT test, “Who’s a Better Writer: A.I. or Humans? Take Our Quiz.” (By Kevin Roose and Stuart A. Thompson, March 9, 2026)

In this article, you’re given five samples, each with two texts (one A.I and one human). The subjects are 1) Literary Fiction, 2) Fantasy, 3) Science Writing, 4) Historical Fiction, and 5) Poetry. The human samples are from well known writers, such as Carl Sagan and Cormac McCarthy. After you read two excerpts, you select the one you like best. In every case, I chose the A.I. excerpt.

In these particular examples, A.I. passages evoke more human experience with greater subtly than actual human writing. Being a cynic, I suspect the passages were carefully selected because of their explicit messages, but even at that, we writers need to forget about denial as a defense. We’re not going to out-write A.I. The solution is somewhere else.

If it’s any comfort, we can tell ourselves that A.I would be nowhere without us. We control the choices, so far.

 

NEW YORK TIMES link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/03/09/business/ai-writing-quiz.html?ae=oa&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20260311&instance_id=172326&nl=the-morning&regi_id=227682554&resp=1&segment_id=216486&user_id=3e762e87559516d79141d72aacf418b9

A,I. is stealing our brain with our permission

AUTHORS YOU NEED TO MEET 

Mark the date April 1 at 5:30 pm! Please! I’m taking the stage with other author luminaries in the Columbia area. I’ve been working on my presentation, which promises to be fun (at least I’m having fun).

“Her Story, Her Voice” on April 1 is a literary event featuring myself and five other women authors. In an intimate setting, we’ll share selections from our work followed by talks with the audience (you, I hope) and other local writers.

To begin the evening, three authors will make presentations followed by a break after which three others will talk. Food and beverages will be provided. Tickets are $18.

Anna Garrison has organized the event. She is a contributing author of an anthology, Becoming Unstoppable: How Ordinary Women Achieve Extraordinary Success, a book featuring writers from across the country who are ordinary women who have achieved extraordinary success. Recently she was a featured author/writer at Readers & Writers in Columbia. In addition to supporting writers, she is focused on helping other females achieve success.

Make it a date! Wednesday, April 1 from 5:30 – 8:00 PM at Something Small Catering, 2510 Main Street, Suite A, Columbia, SC 29203.

Here’s the link to the Facebook event posting: https://www.facebook.com/events/1455053152947268/

Poem published in Last Stanza

Check out my poem in Last Stanza

 

POEMS ABOUT "THE NEIGHBORHOOD"

My poem “Downtown Neighborhood” has been published by Last Stanza Poetry Journal. Though I don’t live in an urban area, my sons have. Visits with them have convinced me that there are essential differences in your approach to life depending on where you grow up. If it was Brooklyn, your tastes and mores vary from those of a person from rural South Carolina and vice versa. That’s not to say one is better or worse than the other, just different.

Issue #23 of the Last Stanza focuses on “The Neighborhood.” It’s available in 1) black and white softcover, 2) eBook, and 3) color illustrated hardcover. Paperback is $12.95, about the cost of a hamburger and fries.

The hamburger will only make you fat whereas reading a magazine (esp. poetry) will sharpen your brain cells. Do yourself a favor. Buy and read the latest Last Stanza, or any book or magazine for that matter.

I hope you’ll take a look.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GGQXBHW3/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PJXp2H4uP_TtTmta1saBBQ.XE452Me9xM_2tiIBKcF8GUvB3BHfz0nIeTOYDAnRJTU&qid=1768406125&sr=1-3

 

 

Foggy Morning

 

My foggy backyard this morning

Weather as Inspiration

Remember some of the old novels (and movies) with foggy scenes. Sherlock Holmes comes to mind and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And Wuthering Heights. Fog comes across as an obstruction to clarity, not just in the scenery but in the plot. The characters have trouble seeing the problem and so do we.

A most effective use of fog appeared in the closing scene of the movie Casablanca. Who can forget the sense of uncertainty it gave us?

According to AI, fog is loaded with symbolism, e.g. impending doom, isolation, moral ambiguity, hidden truth. With all that luggage, you’d think fog would appear in more general fiction than it does. If fact, fog seems to be fading into the genre of horror.

Of course there are the novels where the plot depends less on characters and more on circumstances brought about by the weather. Many of these stories fall into the genre of dystopian fiction, sometimes post-apocalyptic. If that’s your interest, “Weird Weather” may be a source of inspiration- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeirdWeather.

Literary fiction, at least in what I’ve been reading lately, seems to ignore the weather. The characters living through an average plot don’t seem to sweat a lot, nor use umbrellas, or slip on sleet or brush off snow (unless the setting is the tundra).

I’ve finished writing a young adult novel about Calvin, who lives through a winter in 1942. He’s cold much of the time, the fireplace is the only warm spot in his house—a house, by the way, that groans and creaks with the wind.

I am gratified by the changing weather from hot to cold to in-between. And by the changing scenery winter and summer bring. Normal weather reassures us that all is well with the world. Catastrophic events come along to remind us of how much the weather means.

 

the cold gaze of nature

 FULL MOON in CAROLINA

View from my patio last night

 The moon is earth's only relative in a universe that is so full of stars but so lonely.

I've highlighted the monthly full moons on my 2026 calendar to remind me to get outside and look at the sky. It's like taking a breath of frigid air to regard the moon's full glow.  And it raises the timeless questions: where am I and what am I doing here?

If there's something that's eternal, its unanswerable questions. Nonetheless, I'm in pursuit of just those answers in my writing. I have to wonder what that says about myself.

Words vs Numbers

 A LOOK AT WORDS AND NUMBERS

I suppose most writers are fascinated by words, as I am. Recently in a poem I wrote, I take the position that everything that exists  (whether physical, mental, emotional) has a word. In essence, you can’t think of something (much less write about it) if there’s no word for it. My hope is that readers will realize this premise is questionable. And as an aside, is it possible that language limits our imagination?

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?

We communicate not just with words, but with numbers. I’ve told my sons to think of numbers as a different language. Some people hold that we developed numbers just as we developed words in a language. There are other people who will argue that there’s a difference. Numbers are not invented, they’re discovered.

ALL THINGS ARE NUMBER

So said Pythagoras. That is to say, the physical world, everything you can see, smell, taste, feel, or think is quantifiable. And with the discovery, or maybe it’s the invention, of calculus, even relationships and movement can be communicated with numbers.

UNIVERSALITY OF NUMBERS

Now that I’m into numbers over my head, I’ll back out by saying that math was my worst subject in school. Nonetheless, our fascination with numbers and our dependence on them has never been greater. Seems we’re on our way to proving Pythagoras correct.

DATA ADDICTS

For the entertainment of mathematicaphiles, The Week magazine provides a column titled “The Bottom Line.” The shear amount of data collection and analysis is mind-boggling. Numbers relay meanings and can affect our opinions, maybe even change our mind. Several random samples from The Week:

25% of unemployed persons are age 25 and over

64% of Spotify’s most popular podcasts in 2024 were men

The average commuter spends a record 63 hours a year stuck in traffic

Consumers plan to spend an average of $890/person on holiday gifts, food, etc. 

 A book titled Book of Unusual Knowledge, a Christmas gift, states that it took about 30 million hours for Stone Age workers to build Stonehenge. Who figured that out and how?

 

SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE?

Now I’m getting around to another point.  More and more research and/or scientific findings depend on data collection and not infrequently on polls taken of participants.

ARE THESE FACTS OR DATA DRIBBLE?

From The Times (UK) researchers analyzed data from 86,00 adults across 27 countries to find that learning a second language may help slow aging. (As if the only variable in 86,000 people is the number of languages they speak.)

Ultra-processed foods made up 55% of the food Americans ate from 2021 to 2023 according to the Centers for Disease Control. (What’s the definition of ultra-processed food?)

Researchers at the Univ. of British Columbia discovered that people are happier doing activities when sharing with others. Some 41,000 participants were quizzed on how happy they were doing three activities. (How happy? How reliable is a person’s opinion of their own happiness? And what if they’re asked on a bad day?)

 

the SC State Fair

 

 A TRADITION TO HOLD ONTO

 

Doug and I made our annual trip to the SC State Fair last night. I enjoy the neon lights that make me feel like I’m in fairy land. The rides are fun for me but Doug isn’t a good carnival rider, so we took a pass on most of them, except for the gondola that rolls above the fairground.

 

This is Doug sitting beside me in the gondola carriage and gripping the handle bars. He’s smiling for the camera but he’s shivering inside. He’s afraid of heights and is subject to motion sickness. 

Doug, hanging on for dear life

 

 

The panorama view is exciting with lights. In the photo below you can see the overhead view of the fairground with the carriage passing ours as we go in opposite directions.

Food vendors take up a portion of the space with everything you’d expect, most of it heart-attack foods, things like elephant ears, cotton candy, nachos, fried cheesecake, corn dogs, and shis kabobs. My favorite eats are hot dogs and french fries. Doug bought french fries we shared.

Some booths had long lines, but this one didn't

 

I had to get a photo of myself with a person (man) dressed in a metal suit with metal mask and hat. He was so completely covered  I couldn’t see his eyes. Hope he was getting paid plenty cause that costume had to be heavy, not to mention uncomfortable, and threaten a heat stroke.

How does he breathe with his nose covered?

 

 A state fair or a circus is often used as the setting for mysteries, and with good reason. Everything is loosey-goosey there. A criminal could easily commit a crime and disappear in a place like this.