A.M. Offenwanger's Blog, page 7

Uppercross Syndrome

I just spent almost six weeks away from home. Six weeks, eight different places. Vancouver Island, Munich, Hesse, Stuttgart, London, Toronto… Visiting family, spending time with friends, going on errands and sightseeing trips and appointments with said family and friends, talking about their affairs and my affairs and the world’s affairs, experiences piled on impressions and filtered through yet more experiences. It was a wonderful time, a strenuous time, a time to be remembered.

And thro...

How to Effortlessly Learn a Language the Natural Way

As you might know, I’m fluently bilingual. English or German, I can make my desires know: “Excuse me, where do you keep curtain hardware?” or “Wo ist die Zahnpasta, bitte?” It’s not a problem—I jump from one track to the other, and operate in either system without having to think about it.

And then I went to France. For the first time in my life, I was confronted with being struck deaf and mute. The extent of my French is, pretty much, Bonjour, Au revoir, and merci beaucoup*. In Paris, I unde...

#WordlessWednesday: The Way to Travel, or, One Month Ago

A Tale of Two Operas

Where has March gone? Wasn’t it just February, like, last week? Apparently not. Well, at least I didn’t just randomly lose the month as I’m wont to do. I know exactly what happened to it: I spent it on a short-notice trip to Europe for family reasons. As I might have mentioned before, having your family a third of the way around the globe is a pain in the you-know-what, but visits have the added perk that you get to do some touristy stuff on the side. “Love where you find yourself,” and all that...

And Two More Announcements!

And here are two more exciting announcements about this week’s literary releases! (Must be the season…) Neither of them are my own publications, but I had a part in both of them.

#1: The March issue of The Fairy Tale Magazine with a story by Yours Truly

Enchanted Conversation magazine has recently been reborn in a new and utterly gorgeous format as a web magazine under the name The Fairy Tale Magazine. I was honoured by having one of my stories that EC had published in 2018 included in ...

Introducing (drumroll please!): Martin Millerson!

That’s right – we have a new book out!

I wrote this one quite a number of years ago; it was one of my first NaNoWriMo novels. Just for fun, because “Puss in Boots” is one of my favourite fairy tales. I mean, what’s not to like about a story of a cat who wears boots and bosses around a young miller’s son, and in the end gets him his fortune?

In case you can’t remember the details of the story, I won’t give you any more spoilers than that. But I’ll just say that this book follows th...

Paying Attention

Your attention is one of the most valuable things you possess, which is why everyone wants to steal it from you. First you must protect it, and then you must point it in the right direction.
As they say in the movies, ‘Careful where you point that thing!’
What you choose to pay attention to is the stuff your life and work will be made of.

Austin Kleon, Keep Going

I ran across that quote from Austin Kleon the other day, and it really struck me. The man knows what he’s talking about. (He...

Palentine’s Day

I have to let off a quick rant. It’s Valentine’s Day today. You know, Day of Lurrrrv and Romance and Red Hearts and Pink Flowers. And invariably, there’s going to be a few Bah Humbugs (okay, wrong season – maybe curmudgeons, then?) who call for a boycott of the holiday, and complain about how all this talk of love and romance only makes those of us who don’t have anyone who brings them roses and chocolates feel worse about that fact. So therefore, they say, we should not celebrate it at all....

Happy Valentine’s Day!

#WordlessWednesday: Poor Man’s Kintsugi

Thanks so much, Louis.Craft glue and acrylic paint. Nothing like the real thing, which uses lacquer and gold dust, but I like it!