On child marriage--beyond the horror to understanding

The height of mental pleasure: to have my paradigms shifted. To feel the ground shake under my unshakeable convictions of right and wrong. T...

Florence Cassez, Freed

Ms. Florence Cassez, the French girl accused, incarcerated, found guilty, and sentenced to 60 years in prison in Mexico for kidnapping, was ...

50 Best Literary Insults (Thank you, ShortList)

You have favorite lines from Shakespeare, don't you? Roald Dahl, Margaret Atwood, James Joyce? Lines so poignant, so rife with truth tha...

My Next Big Thing

I was invited to participate in the NEXT BIG THING blog hop by the awesome Vanessa Wu of Intense Sensations  (read her awesome Big Thing pos...

The Do-Over 'Fest: Progress

Originally posted on April 18 this year, for the A to Z Challenge: Progress. Brought to you via the Deja Vu Blogfest , courtesy of DL Hammon...

Those poor bots, man

Last week, for the first time ever, a spam comment made its way past the Blogger filters. First time in eighteen months . Like everyone, I g...

Where Do Ideas Come From?

With NaNo prep running rampant everywhere, the forums teeming with excellent plots and characters so alive you hear their pulse, isn't ...

Dog Days of Summer

Down here in the Caribbean it's summer year-round, which makes it difficult to write about anything summer-specific. Barbecues, poolside...

On Crime And Honor

This morning, in that misty land between waking and dreaming I hover after hitting snooze the first (or second) time, a realization on the m...

Forever Young

I'm a child of the 80's (born '73), and this song... Well, it was more than an hymn. There's no other song that so completel...

Apologetic (and funny) explanation Part II

The other reason why I fell off the face of the blogosphere there for a while is because I'm moonlighting as my own housekeeper. Our hou...

A to Z: Zeitgeist

The spirit of the times.  Genius seculi .  What defines a nation, a community, an era . Zeitgeist  is important to writers. It doesn't j...

A to Z: You Know You've Lived in Curaçao When...

Porto Marie, our favorite beach ... you're completely used to people speaking at least three languages--fluently ... your sentences ofte...

A to Z: Xenophobia

intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries. ~ Mac dictionary fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is f...

A to Z: Universal Values

Respect, integrity, honesty, freedom, equality. If the whole world lived by these values, we'd all be just fine , wouldn't we? But--...