Hi friends and happy Wednesday! Writing can be very singular-focused. You’re the author, you wrote it, and often your eye sees what it expects to see, so you can miss typos or the use of the wrong word, but it goes much farther than that. Being so close to your own work, it’s often hard to step back and take a truly objective opinion. Being so tied into the romance and suspense threads (in … [Read more...]

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of giving a talk to members of the Minnesota Chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America. I shared highlights from my research into English seaside resorts and customs during the Georgian and Regency eras, from the rising popularity of resort towns, their social activities and amenities, bathing machines, bathing costumes, beliefs about the medicinal … [Read more...]

It's been almost a year since I got my piano. (You can read that story here.) And I must say, my childhood piano teacher would be so proud of how diligently I've been practicing this past year. I've also been very pleased with how I'm learning to read music better. In January, our youngest daughter challenged me to learn to play a pretty song she'd discovered, Handel/Halvorsen's … [Read more...]