By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky Recently, we made a painful decision to part with a close family member: satellite television service. The good news is that we haven’t missed it. Instead, we reallocated our funds, partially, to season passes to Disneyland. There are several reasons why we chose to do this,…

By Cherrilynn Bisbano @bisbanowrites My mouth would not stop bleeding.   I had a skin graft taken from the roof of my mouth and placed at the base of a tooth to prevent the loss of that tooth.  The initial surgery was not painful, just uncomfortable.   The surgeon told me…

By Penny Reeve My memories of starting out as a writer feel very isolated.  I remember a stack of ‘How To Write’ books from the library, a notebook of story fragments and a mountain ideas. But when it came down to it, there was just me.  I didn’t know anyone…

By Sandra Kay Chambers @PrayWaves Like most young children, my pre-school daughter was often impatient. Early on I found a fun way to help her work on learning patience. I’d have her sit down, fold her hands together and we’d sing this verse from one of her favorite Veggie Tale…

By Cindy Sproles @CindyDevoted Stop it. Please, stop it.  I’ve seen discouraging post after post on conference sites and social media, and it upsets me to see things like, “My skills will never improve? Am I even meant to be a writer? Who wants to read my work anyway?” So,…

by Sandy Kirby Quandt @SandyKQuandt One year when I attended the Iditarod Sled Dog Race Conference for Teachers in Anchorage, Alaska, a teacher told of an airplane ride she and several of the Iditarod sled dogs took with the Iditarod Air Force from a remote checkpoint in western Alaska to…