K.P. Gresham's Blog, page 4
September 25, 2024
Who Do You Love?
Delighted to hear from readers!
Especially about what you re-read…
September 24, 2024 /
Yes, Bo Diddley, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5tSg... but I like the Thorogood version too bit.ly/4gNi38m
I’ve got a secret. So many books I have NOT read. You’d be shocked. No, really. My husband (retired business professor) admires Tolstoy, especially Anna Karenina. He’s read most of Dickens and every word of Moby Dick–several times. When we were dating he bought…
September 10, 2024
Apology and Explanation
To readers, and particularly to subscribers:
I apologize.
Last night I published a post prematurely. Very prematurely.
I then changed the status to Private.
So if you received a notification that a post is online but can’t access it, that’s why.
I’ll post the whole shebang ASAP.
Here’s a picture.
M. K. Waller
September 9, 2024
“Everybody Eats Mushrooms.” Some Live to Tell the Tale.
By M. K. Waller
Today’s post comprises two parts–a bit of fiction followed by a bit of fact–linked by a “fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus” and a mystery writer wh0 confessed to using it ill.
I.
The following flash fiction was inspired by a photo prompt on Friday Fictioneers, a weekly writing challenge sponsored by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.
‘SHROOMS
John ambled into the kitchen.…
August 19, 2024
SERENDIPITOUS SURPRISES
by Helen Currie Foster
August 19, 2024
I wasn’t going to mention the dreadful heat. But facing August in Texas requires early rising. And early this morning came two in-spite-of-the-heat surprises. First, moonset of the August Supermoon:
Second, a tiny frog, less than an inch long, sitting quietly in the shade. Could it be a Texas cricket frog? Maybe some frog-maven will know. Can you spot it…
August 13, 2024
COOKIES, MYSTERIES AND MORE COOKIES
by Francine Paino, a.k.a. F. Della Notte
Cookies. Who doesn’t love them? Far and away, the American favorite is the Chocolate Chip cookie, a creation of the Wakefields of Massachusetts. (More on that later). Over 53% of American adults prefer Chocolate Chip to other varieties. But the most popular cookie worldwide, sold in over 100 countries… drum roll, please, is Oreo!
The popularity of…
July 15, 2024
“PURE WRITERS…”
By Helen Currie Foster
A treat awaits at the end of the Audible recording of The Last Devil to Die, Book 4 in Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series. https://bit.ly/4bJ55EP
The narrator, actress Fiona Shaw, interviewed Osman, who declared that, like so many of us, he believes in Stephen King’s On Writing. Thus his commitment: “Use no adverbs!” As Osman works on a scene he asks—“Is the…
July 9, 2024
THE MAGIC OF SUMMER AND HERBS.
Francine Paino, a.k.a. F. Della Notte
The long, dreamy days of summer are upon us – some places hotter than others, but summer all the same. Along with daylight for twelve-plus hours to enjoy beaches, sand, and vacations from work and school, we are blessed with a profusion of herbs to flavor our food and our lives.
In archeology, evidence indicates the use of medicinal plants dates back to…
July 5, 2024
This Blonde Had More Fun
by M. K. Waller
For my eighth Christmas, my grandmother gave me two Nancy Drew Mysteries: The Secret of the Old Clock and The Hidden Staircase.
And I fell in love.
Nancy Drew was so lucky. She was eighteen years old and had a housekeeper, a steady boyfriend, two best girlfriends, and a blue convertible. The convertible seemed to have a perpetually full tank of gasoline. She was also a blonde,…
June 11, 2024
Words on the Page
by Helen Currie Foster
This week I read with great interest a recent essay by Isabella Cho, Harvard undergrad studying poetry, titled “The Case for Indeterminacy.” Harvard Magazine, June 2024. Cho says that, with students anxiously piling into “useful” majors (computer science, engineering), the dismissive attitudes she sees toward humanities reflect an effort to appear to be “in the vanguard of…
June 3, 2024
Prunus Serotina
Prunus Serotina
My Grandfather’s Cherry Tree
by
Francine Paino, AKA F. Della Notte
A 2010 study published in The American Journal of Psychology found that “memories associated with smells were not necessarily more accurate, but tended to be emotionally more evocative.” How true!
From my office window in Austin, Texas, I look at the magnolia blossoms on the tree in front of my house. Pretty…
