Whew! All the brouhaha about the fiftieth anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair is slip sliding away. I spent much ofAugust obsessed with trying to prove I was there with my paintings. To some extent I succeeded, but my efforts haven’t yet brought me the fame and fortune I was pining for. Nonetheless,… [Read More]
Poor pitiful me–I hate marketing my books
Why should people buy my books? And why do I feel such overwhelming anger when they don’t? The answer no doubt lies deeply buried in the most basic infantile needs for unconditional love and acceptance. In my new book on maximizing creativity, I plan to delve into the research surrounding these issues, but today I… [Read More]
Nursing home placement – another form of elder abuse?
Elder abuse takes many forms. Nursing home placement may be a humane solution, but to many elders it feels like involuntary confinement. I was moved by Jean Henry Mead’s comment on my last post, about the 98-year-old woman who jumped to her death from a nursing home window. My own father experienced a similar sense… [Read More]
Five reasons I’d rather write than paint
A new gallery, the River Front Art Coop, is opening in downtown Troy, and I’m schlepping some of my work down there this afternoon with a view to showing it on consignment even though when it comes to the visual arts, I’m feeling pretty rusty. I did the cover illustrations for both my mystery novels,… [Read More]
Narrow Escape from an Art Attack
Wandering the streets of Schenectady during the “Art Attack” on Saturday, evading the pleading eyes of the artists hawking their works throughout the city’s downtown, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief that I wasn’t one of the hundreds who’d signed up for what may become an annual event. I was reminded, too, how writers… [Read More]
Dogs I’ve loved in life and fiction
Congratulations to Karen Walker, winner of my 50,000 hits contest. Though Karen lives across the country, we’ve shared a lot over the past year through the Blog Book Tours group. I invite you to visit her wonderful blog, Following the Whispers. Here’s the post I contributed to her blog for my Blog Book Tour last… [Read More]