Taking Root
Seventeen-year-old Delaney Moran is trying to make it on her own but panic attacks threaten to undermine her independence. Luella, a determined social worker, and Murray, the owner of a music store, want to help her but in doing so, they uncover a secret from her past.
My Writing Blog
Latest Posts
Recipes
In these edgy, uncertain times, there’s something to be said for finding and following a recipe and the temporary distraction that it provides—measuring, stirring, baking or cooking—and the satisfaction derived from the results. Remember all the bread baking and comfort food making that was going on in the early stages of COVID-19 isolation? Recently, I […]
DMV or Root Canal?
Twenty years ago, while he was still living at home, one of my sons decided to buy a 25-year-old jet boat “as is.” The only water it’s seen since it’s been here is rainwater. One of the grandkids caught some tadpoles in it and brought them to school for show and tell. When my son […]
Summer Days Gone By
Well, I’m back in the saddle, except for the occasional dry cough. Not being able to focus while reading was one of the most challenging aspects of COVID for me. I’m usually a slow reader anyway but this was ridiculous. I found myself reading the same page over and over. No reflection on the writing, […]
Other Writings
Thoughts on Fishing
My junior high school English teacher asked each of her students to find a poem and bring it to class. Flipping through the pages of my parents’ Viking Book of Poetry, I settled on “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop. In exquisite detail, she portrays an ancient, grandfatherly fish that could fight no more. Old hooks and pieces of line were embedded in his jaw but what I remember most was the sadness and surrender she described in his eyes as she held him half out of the water alongside the boat, before letting him go. Her poem resonated with me in an almost visceral way because I’d often gone fishing alone or with my father.
Brenda Bellinger 