Deborah Adams's Blog, page 52

Just In Case : Twenty-One Bite-Sized Stories

I think Ive found the Basho of fiction.

Laura McHale Holland is the author of Just In Case : Twenty-One Bite-Sized Stories, and every single entry in this anthology is a flash masterpiece. The title story is fully-formed in under 60 words, and packs a punch that entire novels often fail to deliver.

Yes, of course, there are a lot of people writing flash fiction. Not so many writing it well. Thats the joy of this collectionHollands variety of finely drawn characters appear in settings and...

You, too?

When #MeToo went viral, Janet Gurtler was among the millions of people who began to reflect on her past experiences. Things she had reluctantly acceptedmale classmates groping her at recess, harassment at workcame back to her in startling clarity. She needed teens to know what she had not: that no young person should be subject to sexual assault, or made to feel unsafe, less than or degraded.

You Too? was born out of that need. By turns thoughtful and explosive, these personal stories...

“It’s only one straw,” said 8 billion people.

Image by Jasmin Sessler from Pixabay

With no regularity whatsoever, I give myself challenges. I did the Local Eating Month, the Buy Used When Possible Year, the Buy No Magazines Year, and other experiments. Today begins my Reduce Single-Use Plastic Year.

Its been almost a decade since Susan Freinkels book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story presented me with a startling awareness of the ubiquitous nature of plastic. As she explains, she tried to go an entire day without touching anything made of...

If you can't reuse it, refuse it

Inspired bySusan Freinkel's book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, I've set a goal to reduce the amount of single-use plastic I bring into my life in 2020. Here's my collection for the second month of the year.
February plastic Much like the previous month, February brought me a pile of food wrappers and a Better World Books plastic mailer. The pic above shows only the plastic that I can't recycle or repurpose in any reasonable way.

Other plastic items that are in limbo include chip bags and...

Recipe for a re-purposed pet food bag

In Month 2 of my attempt to reduce plastic waste, I started to notice the pet food bags piling up. One way to eliminate plastic pet food bags is to eliminate the pets, but since we've grown attached to the beasts, something else had to be done.

Search the internet for 'how to re-purpose pet food bags' and you will find that a lot of very talented people know how to sew quite well. Those food bags can be turned into some really lovely tote bags.

I don't have the required skills for that.

While...

Do something drastic – cut the plastic!

Inspired bySusan Freinkel's book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, I've set a goal to reduce the amount of single-use plastic I bring into my life in 2020.
January plastic Here's my collection for the first month of the year. That's a bag full of food packaging at the top. In fact, you'll see that most of it is food packaging. And most of it came into my house before I took the pledge, but wasn't emptied until after the first day of January.

Please note that there are none of those dreadful...

You, too?

When #MeToo went viral, Janet Gurtler was among the millions of people who began to reflect on her past experiences. Things she had reluctantly accepted—male classmates groping her at recess, harassment at work—came back to her in startling clarity. She needed teens to know what she had not: that no young person should be subject to sexual assault, or made to feel unsafe, less than or degraded.

You Too? was born out of that need. By turns thoughtful and explosive, these personal stories...

“It’s only one straw,” said 8 billion people.

Image by Jasmin Sessler from Pixabay With no regularity whatsoever, I give myself challenges. I did the Local Eating Month, the Buy Used When Possible Year, the Buy No Magazines Year, and other experiments. Today begins my Reduce Single-Use Plastic Year.

It's been almost a decade since Susan Freinkel's book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story presented me with a startling awareness of the ubiquitous nature of plastic. As she explains, she tried to go an entire day without touching anything made...

Remember when Black Friday didn't start until after Thanksgiving?

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay
Do you remember when Thanksgiving was all about giving thanks and gathering with family and friends?

Then it became the meal before Black Friday shopping. And now Black Friday comes well before Thanksgiving (shopping before thanks giving?).

Are you tired of fighting crowds? Are you fed up with manic shopping? Then here's my gift to you: New Dream.org has some suggestions for reclaiming or recreating the holiday in ways that don't cost money.

Have a...

There's been a Murder in the Multiverse

I’ve recently learned about Murder in the Multiverse, the first book in a series by R E McLean that reminds me a bit of the Thursday Next novels with a touch of the Eleventh Doctor thrown in for seasoning. Some of you are going to love it, too!

Claire Pope is one of those eccentric billionaires created by the internet. Her particular form of eccentricity is reclusiveness, which she’s taken to an entirely new level.

With practically unlimited funds and unconstrained paranoia, Claire ought to be...