Creative Living

                                                      Find my books here

Merika is a Greek word meaning creative spark. We all have it. It's part of what makes us human. 

Creative people lead creative lives. Most of my author friends have other creative passions that sometimes fed their writing lives. 

My friend Jodi is a caller for traditional New England dances. 

In addition to her wonderful books, my friend Juilene is an Irish Storyteller in the oral tradition. 

Friend and BWL author Eileen O'Finlan keeps a beautiful garden in her Massachusetts home.

Our readers have wonderful sparks of creativity, too. Roseanne creates beautiful table settings for her large family at holidays. Jeanie is a creative baker. David and his uncle Bill delight children with beautiful model train villages for our local historical society displays.

What are your satisfying creative pursuits, dear reader? How do you make our world more beautiful?

Storytelling Magic

 

Find "I'll Be Seeing You" here

You're never going to kill storytelling, 

because it's built into the human plan. We come with it.
~ Margaret Atwood 

As I complete my third book in my award-winning Navajo Code Talker Chronicles series (All of Me...coming in November), I am, as usual in awe of the power of storytelling. It's the power of the creative spirit... the ability to make something out of nothing that we all possess. We express it in many ways... a well-tended garden, a dance or song, a painting, a family. And it is nothing short of magical.

Our grandson is at an age where he's starting to get the mechanicals behind creating magic. He loved joining his mom to create beautiful illusions to benefit our local Friends of the Library. I enjoyed that spark in his eyes as he pulled a bouquet of flowers from a silk scarf...astonishing even himself. I recognize the same in me as I stand back from a section of dialogue that seems to come from my characters themselves or plot twist that even I didn't see coming. Wow. Moments of magic.

Our young magician

Evan our six-year-old knows that making magic requires craft...presentation, patter, storytelling... and practice, practice, practice with the tools of magic. 

So too for his grandma and her tools of storytelling magic: character development, plotting, dialogue, narration, description... and edit, edit edit!

I hope you'll find the results as pleasing as my grandson's magic!

3 generations of magicians

Book 1

  

Book 2

Book 3

Walk In Beauty

 Find my BWL books here

Dine Woman, 1905

In beauty I walk

With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again

Hózhóogo naasháa doo
Shitsijí’ hózhóogo naasháa doo
Shikéédéé hózhóogo naasháa doo
Shideigi hózhóogo naasháa doo
T’áá altso shinaagóó hózhóogo naasháa doo
Hózhó náhásdlíí’
Hózhó náhásdlíí’
Hózhó náhásdlíí’
Hózhó náhásdlíí’

Here in the US, Columbus Day has ben replaced by Indigenous Peoples' Day, celebrating the first peoples of lands throughout the globe.

I am so grateful to my Huron and Chippewa grandmothers and all the native people who have welcomed me into their lives and shared their culture. I could not have written these novels without their guidance and encouragement. 

Deep gratitude and a hail and farewell  to our precious John Wisdomkeeper who has been such a friend to all of us here at BWL publishing.  He walks in beauty.