Lois Brandt

Trails, Heart Attacks, and Choices

On Fourth of July weekend my husband, Gordon, might have saved a man’s life. We don’t know; we may never know. While riding on a popular biking trail Gordon saw a man lying prone. Gordon’s medical training kicked in. He checked for a pulse. No pulse. A group of four cyclists stopped to help. Gordon told one biker to call 911, told another to figure out exactly where they were, told the third to…

A lot of parents are home with a lot of kids right now, trying to figure out how to fill the time. Relax. There’s always this weird adjustment period where the hours — no — where the minutes — no — where the seconds creep by. After a week or so you’ll fall into a rhythm. (Although, I know, that’s a lot of seconds.)

Here are some tips for encouraging young writers:

Make sure…

Seven years ago, I wrote this:

Our friend’s son was killed in Afghanistan yesterday. I did not know him. I have only a vague memory of him shooting hoops with his dad. I can’t imagine what it feels like, to have this empty space where there once was a son and a future filled with marriage and children and annoyance and beauty. Empty now.

I think of this young man who wanted to serve his country,…

Talking to Your Children About Hunger During this Season of Plenty

This is the season of light, and as a child it was one of my favorites. The tree was surrounded by presents. We said a prayer before our Christmas meal, thanking God for the bounty in front of us.

I also had that child’s view that everyone must have this, loving parents, plenty of food, and annoying siblings. One day my warm view of the world was blown away. I opened up my best friend’s…

Dream Peace on September 11th

  Years ago I wanted to enter a fiction contest. The theme was to set your story in the future.

Now I grew up with Star Trek and Ray Bradbury. I could do future. Or so I thought. Then I stared at the blank page for hours and hours. Unusual for me because I love the open windows of a first draft.

I couldn’t see a future. Anywhere. For Anyone.

And I’m not alone. When I write with teens apocalyptic…

I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid I wouldn’t look into my bedroom or bathroom mirror at night if the lights were off. There always seemed to be some murky ghost lurking in those dark reflections. Waaay too scary for me to examine closely. So I always looked at the floor or the opposite wall as I was walking by. Anywhere but into the heart of those dark mirrors. It was safer not to…

Snafu! or, Should Writers Avoid the NYT Crossword Puzzle?

I’ve always been bothered by the New York Times crossword puzzle. Normally, I win at word games. I love words. I write words, read words, play with multiple meanings. If I were a dog I’d make myself a pile full of words and roll around, paws up, in ecstasy. So why is the New York Times crossword puzzle so difficult for me and so easy for, say, my husband? Now my husband is a pretty bright guy.…

At a school visit a while back an elementary was finishing up on a food drive. They got an impressive amount of food in, and had a closing assembly where the fifth grade team leaders described going to the local food bank, taking a tour, and helping out. I don’t have the words to adequately describe how happy and fulfilled those team leaders looked. Imagine being a fifth grader and learning, for…

Yawn…Another School Shooting

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hearing about these ‘school shootings’. Yes. Kids die. Young lives snapped like twigs. Bodies on the sidewalk. Yadayadayada. Why is this news? We’ve already made the decision about guns in America. The 2nd Amendment guarantees the right of anyone to buy as many guns and as much ammunition as they can carry. We’ve all agreed. The only thing worse than the…

In front of my house in Njinikom (I’m on the far left). When I hear the terms “Africa” and “shithole” together, as I have for the past few days, I picture of my bathroom in Njinikom, Cameroon. It was one of the best bathrooms in Njinikom, and it scared me to death. I lived in a two bedroom cinderblock house (pictured above) with a tin roof. Behind the house was a smaller building, a cinderblock…

The Echo of a Mother’s Steady Love

My mother died several years ago. No matter how old I get, I still have a pang of longing each Mother’s Day for just one more phone conversation, one more moment sitting together at the table, with our hands, so similar, wrapped around our coffee cups.   Mom was always extremely well-organized. A year or two before her stroke, almost as if she had advance warning, she shipped me a box of family…

Maddi’s Fridge, Live

  Wow! I have Google and Twitter alerts set to tell me when webpages or internet users are discussing Maddi’s Fridge. Sometimes I get great surprises, like when the Seattle School District teachers were striking and, to pass the time, read Maddi’s Fridge out loud on the picket line. I ended up visiting some of those teachers at Queen Anne Elementary, an inspiring Seattle school. I also got an…

Shootings, Riots, and Stolen Scoops of Corn

I was eating lunch with relatives this week and the subject of shootings, riots, and football players came up. The drift of the conversation was that charges of racism in this country are overblown. Our own family history says otherwise. Earlier in the week I had been reading some of my dad’s recollections about visiting his grandpa in Ozan, Arkansas in the 1930’s. Dad was a teenager at the time.…

On September 11th, Write About a Peaceful World

It happened a few years after 9/11. Highlights, the children’s magazine, was having their annual writing contest. The theme was: “Write a children’s story set in the future.” The reason I write for children, the reason I read children’s books, is that children’s stories are stories of hope.  A children’s primer that I have from the mid-1800’s, which shows a couple grieving over an empty bassinet,…

Hunger is…

This week I’m giving over my blog to some talented writers. The students at McDonald Elementary School in Seattle has been studying hunger. Here are similes and metaphors from Ms. Roughton’s 3rd graders. “Hunger is like walking through a desert with no end.” – Sam “Hunger is like a river with no water.” – anonymous “Hunger is like a stray cat sitting on the streets having no food to eat except…

The Toilet Paper Superhero

You can sit down to a writing prompt and go to all sorts of fun and weird places. Recently, a friend sent me this prompt: “Write about an early memory of faith, religion, or spirituality. This can be yours, or that of one of your characters.” My first thought was ugh, now I have to get all personal and deep. But then I remembered the toilet paper. My dad always bought in bulk for his newspaper…

I’ve been on the road doing a lot of school visits. Here are two Americans that I met: American #1 I met a young girl who comes to school every day for breakfast. She doesn’t have access to a shower at home and washes in the school bathroom. Her clothes are dirty, her long hair uncombed. I was in this girl’s classroom to lead a writing workshop. I gave the kids a choice of writing  either a story…