If you're a writer, you're familiar with the malaise that comes from too much vanilla bean and not enough hot sauce. The problem is this: you're trying to be too nice. "Look, I want to tell you this story, but I don't want you to think I'm a crumb-cake." So, you tone it down, smooth … Continue reading Maybe you need more cowbell…

-Tonight-on the subway,dark seeps into city slow,the way a drop of ink -in water- turns light to shadow. I fall in love. -He sits-grey and crumblingin a tattered jacket, a fleathery old thing,-but you see-that he is still splendid. I fall in love. -Do you-think it's strangeto love a man whose mottled crownsmells of an … Continue reading I fall in love….

Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, was a master of the art of word play. His prose is chocka-block full of invented nouns and verbs, rhymes, and what I call, gorgeous and greatly terrifying words. As a child I was afraid of him. His poem, Jabberwocky, published in 1891, used invented words like "mimsy', … Continue reading Knock-kneed, bandy-legged, and other gorgeous words.

Once upon a moonless night, as fog concealed the harbor light, a ship of shadows crept ashore and loosed its heathen breath of war. Serpents writhed on shale and stone, and Satyr ruled the land alone, while the province slept and slumbered on unversed in modern Babylon. Hence, the ravaged shores you see, the blackened … Continue reading A Short History of War

              Beryl Markham, where did you find the                      velocity        to fly in the face of ordinary?           1920’s girl, no…woman,               a real barnstormer.                Triple Crown winner,                        spinner   with whip and spur to win the Derby           in 1921! A gutsy one,                   a … Continue reading Aviatrix; girl hero

Oh, it must be ten years ago now, that I left one of my journals on Delta Flight 1287 traveling from Bozeman to Salt Lake City. Those were the early days of my daughter's move to Montana and leaving her there while we flew thousands of miles back to Connecticut was always tough. On the … Continue reading The Art of Letting Go

God is an Englishman, as everyone knows, except the Irishman, who is strongly opposed to the idea of God raised on luscious pork pies, and speaking in Cockney, yet telling no lies. He drives a Rolls Royce over green-earthy moors, and he waves to his tenants, in stone castles of yore. He dreams fondly of … Continue reading God is an Englishman

Eowyn Ivey's first book, The Snow Child is the perfect story to read while snuggled under a warm blanket. This is a book I wish I'd written. A little bit of fantasy, a lot of amazing characters, and beautiful prose make this a top pick of mine. You cannot go wrong with Bernd Heinrich no … Continue reading The Booklist; great winter reads.

Note: This piece originally appeared in EQUUS Magazine. Everyone knows a horse like Folly. An ordinary horse.  He never had a string of blue ribbons hung on his stall or a trophy in the tack room with his name on it. And while it’s true that Folly stylishly jumped a log or two in his … Continue reading An Ordinary Horse