Joyce Magnin's Blog, page 26

Memorial Day

I always miss my father a little bit more on Memorial Day. He was a WWII vet and fought in every major European battle from Normandy to The Battle of The Bulge. Dad carried a little Brownie camera with him throughout his entire tour of duty and pretty much documented his Army career. One of my favorite snaps is of a Belgium family taken shortly after the Allies liberated Belgium. This family was so thrilled to see the Americans march through their town that the wife hurried into her home and ret

Make a Smilebox recipe

Make a Smilebox recipe[image error]

In the Beginning

It all started in the third grade when Mrs. Nichols told us to write a story. My story, The Day The Martians Came To Earth, was about, well, you know, Martians who came to earth. They came in their tiny ships and yellow space suits to knock over Fort Knox because apparently Martians eat gold and they had run out. Mrs. Nichols said my story was superior. Yep, that was the word she used and asked me to share it with the whole school. So I went classroom to classroom and read my little story. In th

Who is Agnes Sparrow

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Happy Poetry Month

In honor of national poetry month I am presenting one of my truly favorite poems of all time. in just by e.e. cummings. Take a breath and read. It's wonderful.
in Just-spring       when the world is mud-luscious the littlelame balloonman

whistles       far       and wee

and eddieandbill comerunning from marbles andpiracies and it'sspring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queerold balloonman whistlesfar       and       weeand bettyandisbel come dancing

 from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it'sspringa

Who the heck is Susan Boyle?

If you don't know by now, you should. This kind of stuff makes me cry. Check it out.
Guaranteed to make you smile. At last count she's gotten over 5 million hits on this. Now if I can figure out how to do that for my novel, The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow.Anyhoo-I hope Susan does really, really well out there. 

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The Perimenopausal Writer

Getting older stinks like old, fermenting cabbage. But I am trying to take it with a certain amount of humor. Perimenopause makes that possible. I have more symptoms than bayer has aspirin. But the most annoying symptom I discovered is loss of memory. OMgosh I cannot remember a blooming thing and I have resorted to writing down pretty much everything. My keys have become a great source of anxiety.  My office area (it's just a table in the corner of my bedroom) is slathered with post-it notes, sc

Look What I Found

The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow is now available for pre-sales at Amazon, here.  How cool is that. I cried a little when I saw it. So go, order ten copies or so. I'm trying to come up with a contest. Um, something to do with lemon squares possibly. I'll let you know when I decide. The winner will get a signed copy of Agnes and maybe, just maybe another, as yet to be determined Agnesesque prize. Also, the new fiction pages at Abingdonpress.com have launched. What a terrific job they did. So go, subs

Not Sick

I am finally not sick anymore.  I had this awful sinus mucus crud throat thing that hung on to me like a bad boyfriend. My nose had turned a most disagreeable shade of red and there were times when I honestly thought I was going to drown in my own snot. But I am better today, actually it was yesterday when I was once again able to swallow without grabbing hold of the kitchen counter and knocking back  saliva like it was Clorox. So, it's back to work, not that I ever really let a little thing lik

Chocolate, Chocolate Everywhere

Good news. I entered a contest sponsored by Bridge Chocolates. I won the grand prize of a year's supply of chocolate. Now what does that look like? I'm thinking a giant easter basket overflowing with luscious chocolate confections. You can read the story here. What a hoot. Writing the essay was fun and a little bittersweet. They were looking for stories about a time when the writer used chocolate to soothe a broken heart, or repair an argument or otherwise bridge some troubled time. I chose to w