Pictures by Darrin Kern @CaptureOnePhotography

Free Writing Workshops

In collaboration with Thompson Falls Public Library and The Sanders County Ledger, we’ll be bringing you free online writing workshops this February! Every Friday in February, join me on Zoom to do a quick five-minute writing prompt, followed by information about writing like editing, submitting, publishing, etc. What do you most want to learn about? What do you need help/resources with? Or maybe you just want to tune in and hang out with some writers from the comfort of your own home in the deepest part of winter!

All meetings are on Friday at 5PM PT / 6PM MT / 7pm CT / 8PM ET (Or Saturdays at Noon, if you’re joining from Australia!)

Please join us via Zoom:

February 6, 2026

February 13, 2026

February 20, 2026

February 27, 2026

And be sure to drop me line letting me know what you’re most hoping to get out of the sessions!

Flashlights & Firelight Online Book Club: Russell Rowland

The Flashlights & Firelight Online Book Club will have a special guest in January: Russell Rowland! The critically acclaimed author of eight books will join us via Zoom to discuss his newest book, Be A Man, and take some Q&A. F&F Book Club is free and open to the public and we hope you’ll join us! Flashlights & Firelight Online Book Club with Russell Rowland on Wednesday, January 21, 2026 at 6pm MT

Like My Ass

Today’s lovely essay from Brevity Blog guru, Dinty W. Moore (one of my literary heroes), hits at the perfect time.

I recently saw my own buttocks in the mirror, a sort of fleeting what-was-that which caused me a double and then a triple-take. Goodness.

See, I’d stopped exercising for over a month because lazy. And I wasn’t in the best shape before I stopped, either. But to all of a sudden be confronted with a bottom that was no longer cute and perky, but very much the booty of a nearly-forty-six-year-old woman accustomed to reading and writing and eating all day, with the appropriate dimples and jiggly-ness was a bit…huh.

There are some things that need to sit awhile, like the angry email I’m glad I deleted rather than sending, or the memoir I’ve been not working on the past year while I try to determine just what it is I’m missing about it.

There are other things that need not be ignored, like my ass.

It is time for edit 5M.2.0 on my caboose. And I should probably get back to that languishing memoir….

Flashlights & Firelight Book Club: Laura Munson!

The Flashlights & Firelight Online Book Club will have a special guest in November: Laura Munson! The New York Times best selling author and leader of the infamous Haven Writing Retreats, will join us via Zoom to give a brief reading from her newest book, The Wild Why, and take some Q&A. F&F Book Club is free and open to the public and we hope you’ll join us! Flashlights & Firelight Online Book Club with Laura Munson on Wednesday, November 19, 2025 at 6pm MT