I just woke up from two unsettling dreams, the kind that made me think, after I popped awake, “Oh, thank God that was just a dream.” One of them was a variation of the standard “last day of school and l’m not ready for the big test” dream, although it was more complicated and intense than that. The other dream was a lot scarier. A Japanese Mafia-type man was forcing me to write propaganda, and threatening to kill my family if I didn’t cooperate. He [...]
I’ve just crossed a few things off my bucket list, one of which was to actually watch the movie, The Bucket List. I watched it on the plane coming home from Hawaii. A Hawaiian vacation has been on my husband’s and my bucket list for a long time, and we finally planned and booked it this year. So that was the major item we just crossed off our list. Our top priority in Hawaii was visiting Pearl Harbor and the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial. It feels [...]
I was at a Georgia Writers Museum event a few nights ago, but that’s not what this story is about. It’s not about the yellow Ferrari, either, although that’s what started it all. What it’s really about is the people – small-town families, big-city couples, people of different ages, stages, and stations in life. And it’s about, as Blanche DuBois famously stated in A Streetcar Named Desire, “the kindness of strangers.” The Writers Museum event had ended, and almost everyone had left, when a couple [...]
I attended an event yesterday called “Dual Visions: Art Through Different Eyes.” It’s an annual show sponsored by the Artisans Village, an art gallery and studio in the city where I live. Preparation for the event starts months ahead of time, when photographers bring in their best photos, and other artists – painters, mainly – come in to select a photo and then recreate it. The artwork is then displayed, with photos and paintings next to each other. The result is always breathtaking. Several friends [...]
I was tempted to buy a t-shirt I saw advertised recently. It featured a row of books on a bookshelf, with titles that included To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The caption under the books said, “I’m with the banned.” I always enjoy a good play on words. And I’ve actually read most of the books that were listed. But the main reason this t-shirt appealed to me is how important the issue of book-banning [...]
Instead of writing a blog post this week, I’m spending time with our kids and grandkids. Our agenda includes, among other things, celebrating the 3-year-old’s birthday, and making dinosaur-shaped chocolate chip brownies with him, his big sister, and his little brother. What could possibly be more fun or important than this? I’ll see you next week. July 7, 2023 ©Betty Liedtke, 2023 I welcome your comments, but please be aware that all comments will be moderated and approved before appearing on this blog. This is [...]
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of looking ahead toward tomorrow, rather than back at yesterday. But now I’m reminded of how pleasant it can be to look back, too. On Saturday, my husband and I attended the 2023 Putnam County Dairy Festival. It’s a big-deal annual event in the town where we live, although this is the first time in the six years we’ve lived here that we’ve gone. In our defense, we’ve been out of town during some of the [...]
It was in the middle of a recent writers workshop that a line from a Rolling Stones song popped into my mind. The line, and the song, is “You can’t always get what you want.” This happened as the workshop leader was talking about some of the nuts and bolts of writing a novel. While describing the development of character and plot, he said that the main character – and there should almost always be just one main character – must have a want and [...]