Linda K. Sienkiewicz's Blog, page 18

The Finnish Sauna

portable tent saunaWhat it’s not

I laughed when I saw this photo in a catalog. How is that even comfortable? Where is she, in her living room? And what happens if she drops the book she’s supposedly reading? It couldn’t have been easy to hold the book and zip this contraption up. It’s so far from the esthetic of an actual Finnish sauna I just can’t deal with it.

My sauna experience

I grew up hearing about the Finnish sauna (pronounced SOW-na) from my father, but didn’t really experi...

Unexpected Joy in a Sleepy Comedy

Joe Pera Talks With You

I just started watching a comedy on the Adult Swim Channel called “Joe Pera Talks With You.” To be honest, I never heard of the show, or even this channel, before reading an article in the Detroit Free Press, but it sounded engaging. Especially since the series is set in the UP, and centers around the life of a choir teacher in Marquette.

Not much goes on in Marquette. There are sea cliffs and lighthouses. It snows a lot, so there may be snow parking bans. It’s ...

Social Media and Selling Books

Instagram post; the tag for the bookstore shows in the upper left corner.It’s about building relationships!

If you are a published writer, you undoubtedly have Twitter, Instagram, a Facebook page and/or other social media accounts.

If you have books on consignment in bookstores, or have sold books wholesale to bookstores, do you use your social media accounts to help promote those bookstores?

You definitely should. Using social media effectively doesn’t mean you’re looking just to ...

What, Why, How: Jenifer DeBellis

Photo credit: Marci Curtis PhotographyWhat:

Everything in my literary life at the moment is centered on the fast-approaching release of my second book, Warrior Sister, Cut Yourself Free from Your Assault (Library Tales Publishing, November 15, 2021). The idea for this self-help book came to me during my 2018 book tour with my coming-of-age poetry collection, Blood Sisters (Main Street Rag). Reading after reading, teen girls and young women (in particular) thanked me for sharing my assault...

Pirates’ Halloween for Landlubbers

A Pirate Jamboree

Our “over-board” Halloween decor began after Don and I stumbled upon the Pirate Jamboree on Ocracoake Island in 2018, which just happened to be the 300 year anniversary of the death of Blackbeard the Pirate.

The jamboree was a rollicking party filled with attendees in full pirate costume, musical entertainment, magic shows, history lessons, period encampments, vendors and a live battle with cannons on Silver Lake Harbor.

We couldn’t wait to attend the following ...

Puppy Update

Corgis look like they’re always smilingEight Months Old

Stony Creek Downtown Cowboy will be eight months old October 21st. It’s hard to believe how much our puppy has grown. His body is longer than Clementine’s (people ask if he’s part dachshund—he’s 100% Welsh Pembroke Corgi!) but he weighs less, most likely because he’s full of peanuts.

Now that he’s housebroken, we’ve opened more areas of the house for him. Allowing him into the dining room, office and front sunroom created more “p...

Surviving a Native American Boarding School

Students and a nun at Cross Lake Indian Residential School. Image: Canada Dept. of Indian and Northern AffairsHistory 101 – a poem

This devastating poem by my friend and fellow alum Mihku Paul is about her grandfather, a residential school survivor who helped raise Mihku. Their family was “deeply impacted by what happened to Gramp.”

Native American Boarding Schools (also known as Indian Boarding Schools) were established by the U.S. government in the late 19th century as part of an “en...

What, Why, How: Carol Cameron

Carol in her studio with sculptures from Council of 9. Photo by Susan ShelleyWhat:

I created the “Council of 9” and its companion piece, “The Threshold” as a total of eleven mixed media sculptures. They make up an installation in my studio-turned-exhibit space. Council of 9 asks that we as humans evolve our consciousness to be a more compassionate and aware species with genuine concern for others, the planet, and those generations that will come after us.

The Council consists of e...

What, Why, How: Nylah Lyman

What:

Frail Union is my first book-length collection of poetry, published by Encircle Publications, currently in bookstores.

Why:

I began writing many of these poems more than a decade ago. At the time, I was involved with a fabulous writing group in central New Hampshire. We called ourselves Women of Words, and we were all poets. We gave readings in the community, and some of the members were already published. They were such an inspiration to me.

I have always been an avid, ...

Queen Bee and the Bee’s Knees: my friend, poet Mary Ann Wehler

The following is my reading from Mary Ann’s memorial service:

A Variation on the Ordinary

I met Mary Ann in the mid 90s  through Margo LaGatutta when I attended the readings for the anthology Variations on the Ordinary. I thought Maryann was amazing. To me she was the Queen Bee and the Bees Knees.

The first time we got together outside of readings was after she’d workshopped with Thomas Lux. She called me, and said “Let’s have lunch, I want to tell you everything I learned.” I was f...