D.G. Driver's Blog, page 5

Why I Believe in the Magic of Christmas

Whatever her motivations were, Lucy was right when she told Charlie Brown that a great way to get into Christmas spirit was to direct a Christmas play. This year  I  was asked to direct a stage production of Miracle on 34th Street for Centerstage Theatre, a fairly new community theater company here in Middle Tennessee. I had previously performed with my husband in their productions of To Kill a Mockingbird and Father of the Bride.  I like this theater’s mission of being a true community theater, open to performers whether they are just starting out or have been performing for years. I also like their commitment to diverse casting.
We started rehearsals the week after Father of the Bride opened in October. This was not a musical, but I added songs for the store elves to sing and wrote a little “Elf Theater” show for them to do. The elves were played by 12 and 13 year old kids, I had six other children, in the show between 7-11 years old, and two of my "grown-up roles" were played by 17-year-old boys. I have directed shows before but not many. It had been five years since my last time at the helm, and that was a play I wrote myself (Don Coyote).
We had a lovely cast of people who got along brilliantly. I purposely cast several women in roles that had been played by men in the movie version: our judge, the prosecuting attorney, and Kris Kringle’s doctor. Yes, it is easier to find women for community theater than men, but I liked the idea of all these professionals being women from the get-go. If you don’t know the story of Miracle on 34th Street, it is about a divorced mother who is a manager at Macy’s department store in New York. She has taught her daughter not to believe in Santa Claus or fairy tales. But then a man shows up who believes he is the real Santa Claus, and he changes their lives.
I told my actresses that in my mind all of them were different versions of Doris, the mother. The attorney was the hardcore disbeliever, the judge was the one trying to find the sense in it all and make the right choice, and the doctor was the believer. It was fun working it all out. I’m a writer, so sometimes I get caught up in the motivations behind my characters’ actions. I applied a lot of this to my directing of the play. Sometimes I think my actors liked this, and sometimes they cocked their heads and wondered what point I was making.
In the end, the show was quite lovely, and I was very proud of it. It was a lot of fun. Doing a Christmas play is a great way to get into the spirit of the holidays. Sometimes you get a little tired of Christmas by the time it finally rolls along, especially if you start rehearsing early. (I did a blog post a couple months back about how, for me, most of this year has been about Christmas). This year, as the director of a show, my Christmas spirit thrived with each performance. I got to sit back and watch the performances instead of having the stress that comes with being onstage in live theater. It was a nice experience to just enjoy this story coming to life night after night, watching it evolve and take on a life of its own.
 
I wrote a director’s note for the program. I’m a bit wordy (if you haven’t noticed, ha ha), so they put it in this teeny-tiny font to fit it in, and I’m pretty sure no one read it. I thought I’d share it here on my blog. My thoughts about Santa and belief in magic just in time for Christmas.

Director’s Note
 
I have always loved Miracle on 34th Street, with a particular fondness for the 1947 black and white version. However, this movie always bothered me a little as a kid. I couldn’t fully get my head around whether or not I believed Kris Kringle was, in fact, Santa Claus. Like little Susan, I wanted to believe, but it just didn’t make sense to me that real Santa would be milling about New York in December and didn’t have more important things to do like being in the North Pole making toys with the elves.
 
Not surprisingly, I became a very practical-minded grown-up, and despite juggling careers as a teacher, entertainer and children’s book author, I don’t allow myself to have many flights of fancy. I relate to Doris and her efforts to shield her daughter from a life of believing in things that can’t possibly be real because I too have been disappointed and let down at times. And yet, is that really the right thing to do? Shouldn’t children be allowed to cling to their innocent imaginations as long as possible? Imagination leads to dreams; dreams lead to hope; hope leads to positive action. So much of childhood disappears so quickly nowadays. We saw that at auditions when I asked every child what they wanted for Christmas, and only one of them asked for an actual toy.
 
Thirty years ago I played Peter Pan and encouraged all the children in the audience to clap and shout that they believed in fairies so Tinkerbell wouldn’t die. Today, I ask you all of you to open up your minds and believe in Santa Claus. Believe in magic. Believe in goodness and selflessness. Believe in pure joy. I know it’s silly, but believe.
 
Thank you to the cast and crew here at Centerstage Theatre for taking this journey with Kevin and me. Everyone has worked so faithfully. We’ve done many Christmas shows over the years, and this will always stand out as a favorite memory.
 
Donna Driver

Now I must get back to cooking Christmas dinner. If you have time, please leave a comment, scroll down to read some of my other posts, or poke around the website. I have lots of excerpts of my work posted. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and wonderful holiday season.

Are Christmas Stories about Bullies?

As is tradition, the night my family decorated our Christmas tree we listened to holiday music. “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” came on, and my 23-year-old stepdaughter launched into a cynical rant about how that was the WORST Christmas story ever. “Everyone bullies Rudolph because he has a birth defect, and Santa allows it to happen. Then Santa USES Rudolph because of his deformity, and that’s why everyone likes him.” Granted, this criticism was said with a fair bit of wry humor.  Still, I balked at her assessment of this Christmas classic.

But over the next few days her cynicism wormed itself into my brain. Was that story really about someone being exploited rather than being celebrated?
Last weekend, I went to see my older stepdaughter perform in a live production of Charlie Brown’s Christmas. This staging was identical to the old cartoon version, complete with live music. All my nostalgia was satisfied.

However, the cynicism from the previous weekend still nagged at me. With skeptical eyes, I watched poor Charlie as Violet informed him that she would never consider sending him a Christmas card. Was Lucy setting Charlie up to fail on purpose when she asked him to direct the Christmas show? Was she anticipating how poorly he’d be treated, between the kids ignoring him while they danced and teasing him when he picked the wrong tree? He mopes away and abandons his little tree. We all think it’s a happy ending because the kids gather around and fix up the tree and then sing Christmas carols, but what is really happening here? They fix the TREE? “All it needs is a little love,” Linus says. But… But… What about poor Charlie? Does anyone ever say sorry to him? Do they hug him and make him feel better. Nope. Not even his dog.
Of course there are bullies in the comedy movie A Christmas Story. It's a large part of the plot. That movie is a poking fun at the Christmas season in an era gone by so we don’t take it too seriously. Still, Ralphie ‘wins’ by beating up the bully. We cheer for him. It’s about time, we think as we watch this happen. Ralphie doesn’t get in trouble because his mother is forgiving and understanding. She doesn’t tell Dad. She’s a good mom. I love this movie so much, but what is this teaching kids? Do we need to have a sit-down with them after the film and talk about the right way to handle bullies? Punching them in the face is probably not the correct solution.
So, now that I’m looking at the world through this lens, I take a moment to consider the Christmas story I wrote this year “Sharing the Spotlight” which is based on characters from my children’s novel No One Needed to Know. In this story, Heidi (12) and her brother Donald (16) have holiday programs at their schools on the same night. In the second half of the story, Heidi has finished her program and is now watching her brother in his choir performance. The choir is doing a medley of carols, and it appears to her that her brother, who is autistic, is being made fun of by his choir teacher. It infuriates her.
Excerpt from "Sharing the Spotlight"

     The medley switched from “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, which had featured all the weird figgy pudding lines, to “12 Days of Christmas”. This was my very least favorite Christmas carol. I never understood it. Why were there twelve days of Christmas? Plus, I could never keep track of anything in the list after six geese a-laying. The choir sang it ridiculously fast, and the audience loved this double-time rendition. People smiled and chuckled around me. I shrugged and decided it was all right. I had to admire the choir for what they were doing. I sure couldn’t sing that song that fast. How did they remember all the words? They must’ve rehearsed a lot.
     I focused in on my brother, watching his mouth fly over the lyrics. He was getting it. All of it. He wasn’t lagging behind one little bit. Peter had completely given up and was back to staring at his fingers. I turned to Russell, about to point this out to him, when all of a sudden I heard “Five Golden Rings!!!” sung so loud by my brother it was like he was trying to be heard outside.
     The audience erupted in laughter and applause. The song paused for a moment. All the blood in my body rushed to my face. I was so embarrassed for my brother.
     “Oh no,” I moaned quietly, sinking down in my seat so I could barely see over the head of the man sitting in front of me.
     The laughter ebbed. The choir started up again, singing those last four lines even faster than before, as if to make up time. This was the craziest song I’d ever heard. Oh, and then the next verse began. “On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…”
     The girls sang, “Six geese a-laying.”
     Then Donald. Again. “FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!” All by himself. As loud as possible.
     More laughter. More applause. My parents laughed and applauded. Russell and his parents laughed and applauded. Everyone in this auditorium was having a good chuckle at my brother’s expense. Did Mrs. Ambrose plan this? What kind of teacher was she, making a spectacle of my special needs brother?
     Next verse. All the boys sang, “Seven swans a swimming” followed by the girls singing “six geese a-laying”.
      I dared to peek over the man’s head. Everyone in the choir, including Peter, was smiling now. They were having a grand old time. Their bodies pivoted toward my brother. Mrs. Ambrose gestured to him. He raised his right hand and pointed his finger toward the ceiling like a politician making a point in a debate, and warbled “FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!” As the audience laughed and clapped again, he put his hands together as if to clap for himself.
      I put my hands over my face. This was the worst.
      Thankfully, the medley shifted after that verse to “Good King Wenceslas”. I’ve always hated that song, too. For this song, the choir made a big thing out of saying “Wenceslas”. The word went back and forth from the boys to the girls, being pronounced different ways, until Mrs. Ambrose stopped them. She didn’t say anything out loud, but her hands gestured the syllables of the word. All the kids said “Ohhhhh” in unison. Mrs. Ambrose began conducting again, and now they got it correct.
       “Good King Wence-las once looked down…”
       Everyone was laughing again. I just stared at the choir, my mouth hanging open. Was it supposed to be funny?
Heidi eventually finds out that everyone loved what her brother was doing and celebrates him after the show.

Have I written Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Is the teacher like Santa and using Donald to make her show more entertaining? Does everyone love Donald because he’s been exploited in this way?

Or is it the way I intended – Donald is being given a chance to shine. Mrs. Ambrose isn’t taking advantage of him, or making him the object of ridicule, but is giving him a genuine moment to revel in the music and be highlighted for who he is. Heidi’s brother may have some quirks and ticks, but he is all joy. It shows during his performance. Heidi comes to realize that her brother’s spotlight moment in the show isn’t about showing off or being the center of attention, but rather about a pure, honest love of celebrating Christmas. Two nights ago my youngest daughter’s high school band performed their Winter Concert. She and several of her friends have been volunteering all semester with United Sound, an organization that makes it possible for kids with special needs to learn how to play an instrument. Caylin helped teach a young man with Down Syndrome to play the saxophone. The United Sound group joined the band for one number of the concert. None of them had solos, but they were visible and a big part of the piece. It went great. We gave them a standing ovation, and I was so proud of my daughter and her friends for being part of this great, inclusive experience.

The concert made me think of my older brother who has developmental disabilities and how his friends in the high school choral and drama departments accepted him. It made me think about Heidi supporting her older brother at his choir concert in my story. It made me think about the reindeer welcoming Rudolph to help light the way (not to mention the fact that it was Rudolph who convinced Santa to find homes for all the misfit toys). It made me think about the fact that someone needed to hug poor Charlie Brown and thank him for being the first one to see that that little broken tree could be something special.

My cynicism has fled, and I am once again full of Christmas spirit. This is the time of year to be hopeful for the future and see the good in each other. I hope that you have a wonderful holiday season.

Please comment below if you enjoyed this post. I’d love to hear from you.

FYI
“Sharing the Spotlight” is featured in Winter Wonder, a collection of nine stories for readers 9 and older, now available for only $0.99 at Kindle and Nook. It's also available in print.

No One Needed to Know, my novel about autism acceptance and bullying, just won its 4th award – the Gold Medal for Special Needs Awareness from the 2017 Human Relations Indie Book Awards. It’s available in print through Prime at Amazon, so you still have time to order it as a gift for a young reader you know for Christmas.

An Author Thankful for Rejection (No, Really)

This was me before a presentation at LibertyCon in Chattanooga a couple years ago. Rejection feels a lot like standing in an empty train car with your books and nobody showing up to hear you talk about them. A couple weeks ago I was on Facebook and Twitter grousing about a bad week. I was dealing with a massive headache that actually caused my right eye to turn blood red, and on top of it I got four rejections in a row: one for an elusive Bookbub ad, two from agents, and one from writing job for which I’d written an audition sample. Needless to say, I was down in the dumps.

I got lots of sympathy from my sweet FB friends, and then I got one reply on Twitter that went, “I like to think that every time I get a rejection someone else is getting an acceptance.” That made me pause and reflect. I like the positive spin. Taking something that makes me feel bad but hoping that it’s something good for someone else. This is the way I want to be as a person. Truly. Not being sarcastic at all.

Now, I know in reality there are far more rejections than acceptances in this business. It’s not realistic to think that every rejection out there for creative types leads to someone else getting their shot. However, someone eventually gets through that golden door of success – and yay for them. I mean it. That’s awesome.

I’m very used to the word “no”. I’ve been a performer since I was a kid and a writer since my early twenties. Clearly, I’m not in the movies or on TV, so you see how that Hollywood stint went for me. I could wallpaper my house with rejections from publishers. Even here in Nashville I occasionally lose out on roles in community theater shows. There are just a lot of talented people who like doing fun things like acting, singing, dancing, and writing. I know so many extremely talented not-famous people.
The theme of my blog is revision, so I’ve decided to revise my position on rejection. Where has rejection taken me? Well, if I’d gotten the movie or TV roles I’d auditioned for back in my twenties, I might still be in Los Angeles. I wouldn’t have met my husband. I wouldn’t have been there for my step-daughters when they needed me. I wouldn’t have become part of the theater community here. I wouldn’t have become part of SCBWI Midsouth. I might not have ever published a book.

If I’d gotten one of my earlier writing works picked up by an agent or major publisher, would it have been any good? Would it have been panned by critics or failed to sell? Would I still be writing today? I’ve looked back at some of my earlier work. It wasn’t great. Time, education, and hard work have made my writing stronger over the years. I hesitate to write this, but I confess that the quality of writing in the last book of my Juniper Sawfeather Trilogy, Echo of the Cliffs (written in 2016) is much stronger than the first book, Cry of the Sea (written and rewritten between 2000-2013).

It does hurt to open that email from an agent and read that my work “is not what we’re looking for at this time.” Weirdly, it’s harder when the agent writes nice things. My latest rejection read, “This is definitely the kind of project I'm interested in.” Yay? No. It was followed with “I’m just not passionate about this manuscript, and I have to be passionate about what I take on.”

How do I deal with that? My book is good, it’s “right”, but it doesn’t rise to the top. I’ve come across that “passionate” word from agents, publishers (and directors) many times. It doesn’t make me feel like I’ve come so close, my book has to be good! It makes me feel like Are you serious, right now? What do you want from me?

I take a deep breath. I consider my options. Do I keep trying for the agent? Do I look to smaller publishers that don’t require agents? Do I remember that it’s 2017, and I can publish it myself if I really want to? What is my goal? I’ll take a moment to look through the book again while wishing one of these nay-sayers could at least tell me what was keeping the book from making them passionate about it. Maybe I’ll get a beta reader or two to help me out.
Then I’ll remind myself that I have been accepted by publishers, received reviews that made me smile, and even gotten a couple awards.  I’ve got two stories in a brand new book, Winter Wonder, that came out this month. I’ve got another new young adult novel coming out in 2018. I work with a publisher that is very enthusiastic about my writing. I’m directing a sweet Christmas play with my husband at a local theater full of enthusiastic children and adults just starting out on this acting adventure. My daughters are in a good place – busy with their own shows, jobs, and school. My family is close by. The babies I teach at my day job are fat and happy.

And maybe somewhere out there in the world an author with a great children’s book for boys full of adventure and fantasy got picked up by an agent and is going to make it big.  Maybe someday when my book Dragon Surf finally gets its chance, I’ll point to that other book and say, “If you liked -----, you’ll like this too!”

I wish all you writers a happy holiday season and great success! Face down those rejections and write on! I don’t know what the ending to this career looks like, but it’s not over yet.

Please leave a comment if you’d like, scroll through my prior posts, or enjoy my website. It’s full of excerpts from all my published books.
Brand new! A collection of 11 stories for preteen and teen readers - two of them are based on characters from my award-winning novels No One Needed to Know and Cry of the Sea. Only 99cents. Click on the image for Amazon Kindle Also brand new! All 3 Juniper Sawfeather novels in one ebook box set for the low low price of $6.99. This price goes up after the holidays, so snatch it up. Click on the image for Amazon Kindle.

It's Already Christmas for This Author

It's October, and everyone is excited about fall and Halloween. This is the time of year when everything tastes like pumpkins, nutmeg, and cinnamon. It's also the time of year when all the Autumn-lovers post their hatred and frustration about Christmas displays being out too soon at stores. "At least wait until November!" they cry out, sharing images and gifs of frustration.

I do understand that, because I love fall as well. I'm not big fan of being cold, and I dread winter weather. This California girl still hasn't adjusted to the freezing temperatures and occasional snows that come with living in Tennessee - even after being here for fourteen years.

That said, my head is already full of Christmas. Worse, my head has been full of Christmas since May.

No joke, the moment I finished my final round of proofreading for Echo of the Cliffs, I embarked on my next project: writing two short Christmas stories for an anthology. Author C. M Huddleston, who has a book blog called Monday Morning Indie, invited eight of her favorite children's authors that she's reviewed to write holiday-themed stories based on the characters from their books. She asked me to write stories based on both my middle grade novel No One Needed to Know and my YA fantasy Cry of the Sea.
The deadline was August 1st, so I couldn't put them off. I came up with an idea for my No One Needed to Know story pretty easily. That novel is about 6th grade girl with an autistic brother in high school. The conflict of bullying in the novel is resolved, so I needed a new problem for them to face. I thought of my own kids. I have a step-daughter 7 years older than my daughter. One night a few years back, the older one had her Winter choir program on the same exact night as my daughter's fifth grade Holiday play. I remember the chaos of that evening trying to attend both events. I decided to use that concept and tell it from Heidi's point of view. That story flowed easily, and I hope with a fair bit of humor.
Here's a little excerpt from "Sharing the Spotlight" 
My event was the cool one. We were doing this play about Santa’s workshop where the elves are building the toys, and then all the toys come to life while the elves are trying to wrap them up and put them on the sleigh. It’s pretty funny. My best friend Cathy got the part of the narrator, because she is the best at reading aloud. Jackie, LaQuita, and Stacy had all the girls in sixth grade jealous because they got to play different kinds of dolls. They were going to wear tutus and do a cute dance routine that Stacy choreographed. Everyone kept telling them how awesome and pretty they were and how they wished they got to be dolls. I thought Jackie and her friends were just okay. The dance was my least favorite part of the whole show.

I was an elf, and I had my very own spotlight moment. No lines or singing or anything, thank goodness. What I got to do was juggle hacky sack balls with my feet. Not just one, but two. My soccer skills made me especially good at this activity. No one else in school could do it, and everyone tried. It took a ton of balance. You use every part of your foot, your knees, your shins, and your calves when playing hacky sack, and when you’re learning, you fall a lot. When Mrs. Overstreet saw me juggling the hacky sacks on the playground one day, she added it into the play. She covered the hacky sack balls with red and green felt, though, instead of leaving them yellow and black. I’d been practicing every day so that I wouldn’t mess up. I could juggle way longer than the time they were giving me in the show, so I felt confident I wouldn’t drop any. Everyone had been cheering me on during rehearsals. It was going to be one of the highlights of the whole event.

I had a fun costume, too. My mom put it together for me. I wore some polka-dot pajamas of hers. The top was belted, and the pants were rolled up to the knees. She got me both red and green tights, cut one leg off of both, and then sewed them together so I had one leg of each color. I had to wear my sneakers, but they were mostly white. She also made me a floppy clown hat and put big circles on my cheeks with her lipstick. I looked silly but cute. In my opinion, my costume was way better than wearing an itchy tutu.

I was already in costume while I ate dinner, and I was being super careful not to spill anything. Donald had pizza sauce all over his face and hands, which was why he had to dress after dinner. Mom hurried him upstairs to clean up and get dressed. While they were out of the room, I appealed to my dad again.

“Look, we all know that the high school choir performance is going to be boring. They just stand there and sing. I bet Donald doesn’t even know all the words.” Dad frowned at me. I corrected myself. “I know. Of course Donald knows all the words. But he can’t sing well. Have you ever heard him? I don’t even know why he’s in the choir.”

Dad swirled the ice around in his glass of iced tea. “Are you done?”

I deflated. “Yeah.”

“Now that you got all that out of your system, let me explain something to you. Donald enjoys singing, and that is why he’s in the choir. Good or bad, he enjoys it. Also, it’s an inclusive school, so if he wants to be in choir, they have to let him take the class. There is an auditioned choir for upper classmen, but he’s not old enough for that.”

“Oh, come on, Dad,” I said. “Donald’s never going to be in the auditioned choir.”

He made a sharp sound at me like I was a pet about to steal food off the table. “We don’t use the word ‘never’ in this house, especially when it comes to your brother. He might very well surprise us one day.”
Coming up with a holiday story for Juniper Sawfeather, the leading lady of my YA fantasy trilogy, was definitely the bigger challenge. If you're unfamiliar with the Juniper Sawfeather Novels, they are about a teen daughter of environmentalists who discovers mythical creatures. I'd already written a prequel to the series called "Beneath the Wildflowers" which is in the free anthology Kick Ass Girls of Fire and Ice YA Books. Book 1, Cry of the Sea, takes place in October, while book 2, Whisper of the Woods, begins on New Year's Eve. I decided to set this new short story between those two stories.

There are a few details about how Juniper spent her Christmas in the opening chapter of Whisper of the Woods. Using that information, I decided to write about the very busy day she has on Christmas Eve going back and forth from visiting her grandfather on the reservation, her mother's parents in the suburbs, and then winding up at a logging protest site that night.

There is a taste of the magic and mythology from the trilogy, and a good set-up for book 2. Mostly, though, it is a chance for fans of Juniper to get to know a little bit more about her and her family, or for people who've never read the books to meet her. It took a few revisions, and some insight from one of my dear friends who is a fan of Juniper to help me get it just right.
Here's an excerpt from "Christmas Among the Evergreens"

“Where did you get fresh berries this time of year?” Mom asked, utterly amazed.

I said nothing as I enjoyed the delicious sweet-tart flavor.

Carol grinned, showing off her beautifully straight dentures, “Would you believe I found them right here in the woods?” She gestured with her thumb over her shoulder. “I thought I was going crazy when I saw them. Clumps and clumps of them. I dragged Richard in there to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.”

Richard nodded. “They’re there all right. It was almost magical, seeing plump blueberries in December. We plucked a lot, but there are still some left if you want to get some. That is, if the animals haven’t gotten to them yet.”

“We better hurry then,” Mom said.

Dad said he’d stay and take care of some business with Carol and Richard while Mom and I hiked into the woods to gather berries.

“Well, this is a fun start to the morning,” Mom said to me.

I had to agree. While it wasn’t super bright out, the clouds were high and scattered, and no rain was forecast. The morning sunlight filtered through the tall canopy of trees and dappled the ground with color. The world smelled of pine, my second favorite aroma next to saltwater. We wandered a bit until we saw a couple birds flitting around some high bushes nestled between the trees. Mom clapped her hands and sent them flying.

“There’s some left,” she said.

I held the bowl while Mom plucked the berries. I ate one berry for every handful she dropped in the bowl. Okay, I might have eaten more than that.

“We won’t have any to bring back to your father if you keep eating them,” Mom teased me, but I noticed she plopped a few in her mouth, too.

I handed her the bowl and said, “I’m going to see if there are any more.”

Leaving her to her task, I wandered away, searching for more of the same kind of bushes. Eventually, I emerged from between a couple trees into a small clearing, about ten-feet wide or so. Across from it was the most massive tree I’d ever seen. I recognized it right away as one of the Red Cedar trees, an evergreen known for the umber color of its bark and its incredible height. I noted the red paint mark about seven feet up that signaled it was one of the old trees to be protected. Of course it was old. The trunk was so large it would take at least three, maybe four, people lying toes to fingers to make up the circumference. I craned my neck back and couldn’t see the top of it. I wondered how high up it went and what it would be like to be up that high in the air.

I approached the tree and put my hand on it. The bark was smooth and remarkably warm on this cold day. The logging protest hadn’t been a top priority for me, and I hadn’t taken a lot of interest in it. Looking at this wondrous tree, however, I understood why my parents cared about it. Something as grand as this shouldn’t be destroyed. I patted the trunk and whispered, “My parents are going to protect you. I promise.”

Then I felt the strangest sensation under my palm. It was like the tree breathed. Like it let out a sigh.
These stories now appear in the newly released Christmas anthology Winter Wonder.

Winter Wonder brings you a confection of Christmas stories by an array of well-loved authors featuring characters drawn from their award-winning books. Eleven new stories spanning all ages from the young to the young at heart will whisk you away on a snowstorm of delight to worlds of fantasy, adventure, history, and even outer space with tales celebrating the magic of Christmas or the wonder of winter holidays. Fill your child's holiday reading with stories of adventure, myths - both Greek and Native American, science fiction, time-travel, a lyric poem, mystery, and even a bit of romance. Eleven stories will entertain your middle-grade to teen to young-at-heart readers. We welcome you into our winter holiday wonders with stories guaranteed to entertain, illuminate, and cheer.

This book is a treat  for only 99 cents at Kindle or only $8.99 in print at Amazon. (I am told it will soon be available for Nook as well.) I know it's only October, but it's a great time to start thinking about your gift list, and this would be a nice treat for a young reader you know or anyone who enjoys good Christmas stories.
Can I focus on fall and Halloween now? Nope. My head is still wrapped up in Christmas because I've been asked to direct the holiday classic play Miracle on 34th Street at a local theater. I started rehearsals this week.

Someone please bring me a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie and a Chai Tea Latte while I start picking out Christmas carols and staging the show, so I don't miss everything about this season.

Happy Autumn to you! As always, I'd love to hear from you, so leave a comment. Feel free to scroll down to read more of my blog or visit the other pages of my website.