Lori Wolf-Heffner's Blog: Lori Straus' Blog, page 4

3 Ways to Help Local Businesses Without Spending Money

Please forgive the headline: Depending on the context, it can come across as originating from a cheapskate. But my intention is good. Because of the pandemic this year, youve likely read many calls to buy at local businesses. However, the truth is that many people have lost their jobs. Of those that havent, they may have transportation issues and their local businesses dont deliver, leading these potential customers to shop online. If you find yourself in either situation but still want to...

Discovering the Allure of Black Tea

When I tried my first cup of loose-leaf black tea, my first reaction was, “Oh, it tastes like black tea.” Hardly a culinary epiphany of gastronomical proportions. I was disheartened and worried my journey into the world of the camellia sinensis plant would end before it began. But only one or two cups later and I became hooked. In this blog post, I’ll share with you what I did wrong with my first cup of black tea, my impressions when I tasted other types of black tea, and how this all factors in...

Giving Books as Gifts to Voracious Reader

It can often be difficult giving books as gifts to an avid reader in your family: You have to know their favourite genres, favourite and disliked authors, and what books they’ve read and bought. Which is why trying a new author could work. I published my first book in 2018, so I’m still relatively new on the market. If you’re thinking of giving books as gifts to an avid reader you know, keep reading. I’ve created a list of the kinds of readers who’ve enjoyed my books, which should help you decid...

Coming Soon: Lori Wolf-Heffner’s Online Store

Just a very quick heads-up: If you live in or are shipping to an address in Canada, you’ll soon be able to order signed books directly from me. I do need to warn you, though, that shipping will be standard Canada Post rates. For one copy of a Between Worlds regular print book, that will be $5 + HST. If paying directly for shipping is not your thing, you can continue to purchase my books here:

Where to Buy Between Worlds

This series about Juliana and her great-grandmother Elisabeth is ...

Book Release! Between Worlds 7: What Will Come

Between Worlds 7: What Will Come releases today! The last of the “second season” of the series, I’m excited to enter into the last few months of such a downer year on such a high note. In this blog post, I’ll share with you insights about Between Worlds 7: What Will Come. 

Cover design by Michelle Fairbanks of Fresh Design



What Will Come for Juliana in Between Worlds 7

An only child who grew up away from extended family, Juliana has never faced the realities of aging. In Between Worlds ...

World Mental Health Day and Me

Today is World Mental Health Day, and it’s a day I’ll admit I’m always conflicted about. I sometimes worry that some of the messaging on mental health and mental illness makes it sound like a meme: “An affirmation a day keeps the shrink away.” On the other hand, sometimes the answer really is simple. Like right now, I’ve struggled with about two months of high stress and poor sleep, and yet the answer to better sleep turned out to be stretching at night before bed and taking some breathers durin...

Lisa LaTouche on Tap

Lisa LaTouche began tap at age eight after her mother showed her a little time step. Her career has taken off since. She’s studied under Buster Brown, Gregory Hines, and Savion Glover and performed on Broadway, including at the 70th Tony Awards. We talked about all angles of tap: emotional connection, its cultural roots in slavery and the African-American community, and finished off with a few tips for current students and adults eying that beginner adult tap class.

The interview below is edi...

What Do You Call Books Free from Explicit Content?

I set out to write books free from explicit content, but I didn’t know there was an actual term for that. The term is “clean books,” which isn’t what it sounds like. In this blog post, I’ll explain what clean books are and what that means you can expect as a reader of my books.

What Are Clean Books?

Clean books are books free from explicit content. You will find some debate about this, but overall, clean books share the following characteristics:

No swearingSex is off-screenNo gory or ...

A Review of Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. A Memoir, by Jenny Heijun Wills (McClelland & Stewart, 2019)

This book hit me in the gut. Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related by Jenny Heijun Wills is a poetic, edgy, sad, and ultimately hopeful memoir about gender, ethnicity, and skin colour.

Wills was adopted from Korea as a baby by white parents, who shortly afterwards gave birth to another daughter. Once she was old enough, Wills returned to South Korea to find her birth family. Her journey to find an identity and a family for herself unfolds throughout the book.

The books I read as a child ro...

A Review of Brown, by Kamal Al-Solaylee (HarperCollins, 2016)

The subtitle for Kamal Al-Solaylee’s 2016 book is “What Being Brown in the World Means Today (to Everyone).” I picked it up because I couldn’t recall hearing much if anything about people with brown skin over the years. The book description on the flap reflected my own experiences:

Brown is not white. Brown is not black. Brown is an experience, a state of mind, a world hiding in plain sight. Historically speaking, issues of race and skin colour have been interpreted along black and white line...