Local librarians Lisa and Leah in Cashmere, WA have enthsiastically scheduled a talk about Open Borders, 1 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 23rd. I’ll be reading from my memoir and talking about the ways in which people in eastern Washington’s central Valley responded to the threat of nuclear destruction at the height of the Cold War, …
Exciting news! Open Borders will be available for purchase one month from today: Oct. 16th. Hard to believe this long process of getting a book published is coming to a climax. Birthing Open Borders has been far more challenging than producing four daughters. The father of those daughters hasn’t been physically available to support …
Dear friends, I recently received an email from the author and writing teacher who launched me on this writing path, Natalie Goldberg. On Wednesday, February 7th, I went to Upaya Zen Center [Natalie lives in Santa Fe] and listened to Kaz Tanahashi’s dharma talk. He talked about war. He lived through WWII in Japan. He …
I recently met with members of the history department at the University of Washington, professors who are interested in the Cold War. One, Professor Elena Campbell, born and raised in Russia’s closed military city where their nuclear submarines were manufactured, has memories of the Space Bridge contact between KING 5 TV and Glastelradio in 1985. …
If you google Target Seattle today, what you get is the location of the Target department store nearest you. In 1982-1984 Target Seattle had another meaning altogether. Try to imagine just how frightened US citizens were of the possibility of nuclear war and of the Soviets from the McCarthy communist witch hunt, the Cuban missile …
As the storm clouds of nuclear build up gather, we might ask ourselves “what can we do?” as ordinary citizens to prevent nuclear war. Mayor Charlie Royer asked that very question in 1980. By 1984, thousands of people across Washington state and around the country were educating themselves about the threat to nuclear war. The …
Open Borders, A personal story of love, loss and anti-war activism. Writing this memoir served two aims. Through the examination of a period of intense political activity in my life, I have been able to trace my passage to independence. Mine is the story of many women born during World War II and raised at …
It’s here! The public record on display of citizen diplomacy in the Puget Sound area in the 1980s. Watch for it: Yours truly is on the big screen in the main exhibit room of the Washington State Historical Society Museum in Tacoma. You’ll learn all about what people were saying and doing about the threat …
Not everything belongs in a good story, even when the scene was an important one in the dramatic arc. Perhaps that is one service a blog offers a writer, giving her a place to share what will not be in the final version. Not every title is the final and best one. I began Evil …
“…creative intelligence is especially concerned with solving problems of meaning.” Justine Musk, blogger on writing. Justine’s post on the power of story to find yourself is exactly what I’ve been doing with my urgent desire to write the stories of my life. Turns out that I have been more interested in the movie of the …