Category: Special Features
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New YA Novel Nears Completion
During my 28 years at the Ohio Department of Education, I spent a great deal of time at State Board of Education meetings. One of the Board’s primary responsibilities was (and still is) to revoke the licenses of educators who, because of criminal or otherwise inappropriate behavior, were deemed unfit to work in a school…
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2023 Holiday Favorites
A couple of weeks ago, when I saw that my next blog posting would fall on December 24, I decided to do something different. Rather than write some dull (and probably overlooked) piece on grammar and/or punctuation, I would list the favorite holiday stories. movies, and books of my family and friends. In the end,…
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Have a Capital Christmas
When we think of Christmas and all the lovely things that come with it, we definitely do not think about the rules for punctuation and capitalization. Just the same, the holiday season in general and Christmas in particular provide an opportunity to consider when capital letters, italics, and quotation marks should be used when referring…
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Some Additional Thoughts on Keeping a Diary
After posting my “tips” on keeping a diary about a month ago, I had some additional thoughts on that topic. At the core of these additional thoughts are two basic facts. First, your purpose in keeping a diary will determine in large part what you include and exclude in your entries. Second, unless you plan…
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A Visit to Bookingham Forest
Note: I was in Long Island for much of the weekend and didn’t have time to put together a fresh posting for this blog. So here is a story I wrote several years ago about taking my grandchildren to Worthington Library’s “Bookingham Forest.” Going to Bookingham Forest is an adventure that begins even before we…
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Tips on Keeping a Diary or Journal
Many years ago, I had the opportunity to read through a diary kept by my grandmother’s aunt (my great grand aunt, I suppose). The diary covered a period of about five years from 1915 to 1920. I relished the chance to review it, believing it would provide this woman’s thoughts and feelings about World War…
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The Joy of Poetry — Part II
My last post focused on my dismay over the tendency of modern poets to deal with depressing topics. For me, poetry has always been something much more positive. That attitude may have been shaped in my childhood by gentle nursery rhymes or thought-provoking nonsense poems by Dr. Seuss. Once, as a gift for either my…
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The Joy of Poetry – Part I
A few years ago, I attended a poetry reading at a bar in downtown Columbus. The featured poet was a young man who had struggled with an opioid addiction for a number of years. He seemed to be on the road to recovery, but his poems didn’t focus on his emerging triumph over his addiction.…
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Words as Problem-Solvers: Part II
There are many songs about well-known cities in America. There’s “New York, New York,” “Cleveland Rocks,” “K.C. Blues,” “I’ll Get by in Pittsburgh,” and “Freedom of ’76” (Philadelphia) to name a few. Some cities even have an official song, designated by their city council or by popular vote. You might think such a designation would…
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Words as Problem-Solvers: Part I
“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” In my childhood days, kids often chanted that little verse to counter the nasty words other kids threw at them. In the adult world, of course, words can and do cause hurt. They can lead to every kind of harm imaginable from…