Summer is a coming in/ Sumer is icumen in Summer has arrived, Loudly sing, cuckoo! The seed is growing And the meadow is blooming, And the wood is coming into leaf now, Sing, cuckoo!

The ewe is bleating after her lamb, The cow is lowing after her calf; The bullock is prancing, The billy-goat farting, Sing merrily, cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo, You sing well, cuckoo, Never stop now.

The Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess

This book of tenuously connected stories explores what it is to be female. Daughters, mothers, friends, teachers, mentors, and sisters have their innermost thoughts and feelings laid bare. Adolescence is portrayed with all of its ugliness, its angst, insecurities, naivete, and wanting. Society’s expectations of girls and women are depicted – though disjointedly with many unanswered questions…

On Discovering that I was a Magical Realist

The story materialized in my head a few days before Halloween, 2009. It’s World War 2. A gang of creatures, half man and half beast, attack a party of SS men executing a group of Jews. I imagined a pretty young girl stumbling over roots as German soldiers herded her toward a clearing in the dense Polish woods. I visualized a wolf standing upright, a lean, doglike head, tip-tilted gray eyes,…

Spotlight on Secondary Characters

Photo originally used for “No Sleep Tonight“

Writers often talk about how their characters will develop minds of their own, how they’ll do things the author never would have expected when they first started writing them. I think this phenomenon is wonderful but I’m not sure it’s quite happened to me in the way many writers describe. It’s a side-effect of knowing your characters really…