The fly sitting in the staircase window of my retirement center has been dead for several months.  Unlike me, most folks don’t use the back exit to reach ground level.  They prefer the elevator.  I may be the only person in the building to bear witness to the insect’s slow deca

Advance reader praise for Gettling Lost to Find Home. from Anne Hillerman, Author of the Chee/Leaphorn/Manuelito mysteries including The Way of the Bear, 2023 Caroline Miller has gifted us with a compelling story full of hope, adventure, and friendship. She offers an intimate look

The email came as a disappointment.  My friend had come down with Covid. That meant a reading of his short stories, both a public and Zoom event, was canceled. For two decades, I’d encouraged his writing, so I was looking forward to the occasion.  Twelve years my junior, I knew my

The would-be author asked me how to publish her book.  I should have replied, do you know your market?  Instead, I gave her the name of someone who might help. Why point to the pitfalls ahead?  The woman had completed a book. She deserved kudos instead of advice. I wasn’t the one

I’ve been trying to forestall this announcement for a while but can delay it no longer.  Earlier this year I hinted that the demands of self-publishing and promoting my memoir, Getting Lost to Find Home next November might require me to publish these blogs less frequently for a whi

I felt as if I’d dropped down Alice’s rabbit hole. The daughter of friends I’d known for years had one name, but I’d called her by another. I even invented a tag to remember it as we seldom meet: “M is for music.”  As it turns out, the girl’s name doesn’t start with �

Getting Lost to Find Home, my upcoming memoir, will reveal my childhood relationship with my father was a rocky one.  We didn’t make our separate peace until I’d graduated from college.  Even then, communication wasn’t easy.  He was an Indiana farm boy with an 8th-grade educa

“Politician Won’t Seek Higher Office,” the headline screamed. The reference was to an interview where I’d said I wasn’t moving my office to a 17th-floor high rise along with my fellow county commissioners.  I hated elevators and worried about public access. The newspaper ba

A year ago, I threw in the towel.  By then my memoir had received more than 100 agent rejections.  Presuming the fault was mine, I decided to rewrite the manuscript. The editor I’d hired to critique the original draft had called that version “literature.” She and I were the on

The woman sitting in the coffee shop opposite me had once been my English student.  She’s in her seventies now and I am halfway through my eighties.  From time to time, she assists me with some of my writing projects. Recently, she did a final edit of my memoir which I began in 20