My novel won a Finalist award for the category Fiction: Multicultural! I feel so honored to receive this award from the 2026 International Book Awards program.
IBA Finalist Award for Dancing on the Brink of the World
Impromptu Reading at the South Whidbey Commons
A member of my writing group encouraged me to read a section of my novel at The Commons on June 5th Open Mic night. My book and other local authors’ books are there for sale, and a cafe serves delicious cafe lattes and baked goods. About 35 people showed up to read and listen.
January 2026 – Birth of a new year and my novel!
The new year has begun, and my novel will be officially published in less than ten days. Book events are already planned for presenting Dancing on the Brink of the World. The first event, my book launch, is at the Freeland Library on Friday, January 23rd, at 3:00 pm. I will be signing my books following a slideshow and Q & A chat. Please plan on coming if you’re in the area. Bring your book if you pre-ordered a copy, and I’ll sign it for you. I will have copies of my book for sale for those who don’t already have one.
There will also be copies of Dancing on the Brink of the World at Moonraker Books in Langley and at Kingfisher Bookstore in Coupeville. For off-island readers, order your copy at your local bookstore or online.
This will be a busy year for me promoting my book. I hope to see many of you at my book signings.
Happy Holidays!
My novel will finally launch in January! After so many years of research, writing, revising, reading it again and again when in production, and patiently anticipating, Dancing on the Brink of the World will be in my hands and yours in a few weeks! My story based on Captain William Richardson and his courageous family will be available – a great after-holiday gift for your friends, book clubs, and family. You can pre-order from your favorite bookstore. Give the store my book’s ISBN: 979-8-89636-034-6
You can also order by writing to
Simon and Schuster, Inc.
Order Processing Department
100 Front St.
Riverside, NJ 080875
In your order, please include the book title, author, ISBN, and desired number of books. Also, make sure to send a check, money order, or credit card number for processing.
Or send email orders to pu************@**************er.com
Or phone in your order by calling (800) 223-2336; M-F, 8:30-6:00 EST
What were your accomplishments in the past year?
Happy New Year! We can still say that since we are not even a week beyond the beginning of a shiny new 2025 (not even a week old). I’ve recovered from the whirlwind of young houseguests (family), thrilled they were here but amazed at how quickly the time passed.
Now it’s time to reflect on 2024. I prefer remembering and writing about positive things that happened, although naturally many issues occurred that caused concerns. It’s been an exciting year for me. After years of rejections, I signed a contract with a publishing company, She Writes Press/Spark Press, publisher Brooke Warner. I worked with a wonderful book coach Kathleen Furin who guided me in strengthening the emotional side of my story and a sensitive copyeditor Candace Allen who helped me polish my work. Thank you for your insights and revisions that improved my novel.
In the last few months, my daughter helped me launch my author website and link my blog to it. My patient husband and I topped off the year with a long-awaited trip to Portugal where we met some wonderful, smart people who graciously showed interest in my novel. The trip inspired me to write about the Age of Exploration—a blog entry soon to come. My husband and I worked with Karen Eaton, organizer of my writing group, to publish Nature and Human Nature, an anthology of short stories, memoirs, and poems from our group of authors, Whidbey Writers by the Sea.
I like to exchange book recommendations with friends at weekly tea gatherings and book club meetings. I’d like to share with you some favorites I read last year.
Trust by Hernan Diaz (a Pulitzer Prize winner)
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni
The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin
Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Here’s to looking forward to an eventful 2025, beginning with working on a cover design with my book designer. Cheers!
Wishing you happiness and health!
Was California ever a slave state?
The Republic of Mexico’s Constitution, adopted in the 1820s, forty years before the American Civil War, prohibited slavery. By 1846, all mission neophytes had been freed from the mission system and the mission lands had been secularized. Mexican-appointed governors chose administrators for each California mission to give the land and livestock to some mission neophytes and many rancheros.
American settlers moved into the California territory with Native American and Black slaves after 1840. They never became Mexican citizens or bowed to Mexican laws. In 1846, several American men staged a revolt in Sonoma to make California a republic with their laws. They were named the Bear Flaggers for the flag they created for their republic. Many of these rebels were quite drunk, and some people thought the bear painted on the flag looked more like a pig, but the Americans pulled down the Mexican flag and saluted the new California Republic flag. Now they could keep their enslaved workers and their land without bowing to Mexico.
The United States Pacific Naval Squadron annexed Alta California a few weeks later, and the California Republic flag was lowered and replaced with the Stars and Stripes. When California became a state in 1850, it joined the Union as a free state. Until the Civil War, some enslavers kept it secret from their workers that they were now legally free.
Because several state flags have a pro-slavery history, many flag enthusiasts see it as a disturbing problem and want to change them.
At the Helm
I had a fabulous time on the schooner Suva last year. It was the first time I had the chance to sail on a ship that size. Even though the schooner was only 65 feet long, it can sleep nine to ten adults for overnight sails. The Suva is similar to ships Captain William A. Richardson sailed on San Francisco Bay during the 1800s, although it was constructed during the Roaring Twenties era and shipped in 1925 from Hong Kong to Puget Sound. It is now a flagship of the Coupeville Maritime Heritage Foundation.
While on board, passengers can explore below deck to see the wheel house, galley, main salon, and the front cabin. You can also have a turn at the helm—with the captain standing close by. A volunteer crew of men and women, people who love the sea and sailing, cruise along with each sailing, to raise sails and educate visitors about the ship and sailing her. Under clear skies and a good wind, I had a wonderful afternoon out on the water.
Why was Indigenous Peoples’ Day established?
For many years a debate hung over the use of the word “discovered” when talking about Columbus Day. Italian Americans lobbied Congress in 1934 for a holiday to honor their heritage and recognize the contributions of their immigrant ancestors. However, Americans failed to acknowledge the role of the many people who lived in the Americas when the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus landed in the West Indies on the island the Lucayan people called Guanahani. Claiming the island for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, Columbus renamed it San Salvadore.
In 2021 President Joe Biden officially endorsed the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples’ day. Many states now observe this holiday instead of, or as well as, Columbus Day. I found this holiday a good reminder to reflect on Native American heritage and even to discover what tribes lived on the lands I’m now on. An interactive map for the Canadian website Native Land Digital (native-land.ca) shows territories throughout the Americas that Indigenous people inhabited. You can learn about this nonprofit’s sources for its map on its website. When I clicked on the California state area, a box popped up listing the names of the many tribes that had dwelled there. I’ve researched several of them and found that each group had its own language, customs, ceremonies, foods, and tools depending on its location. For example, some peoples used locally-sourced clay to make pots while others living near marshes used reeds to weave baskets and mats. I feel I now have a better understanding of their lives and their world before Spanish explorers came.
Emotional Memories of 2021
Over the holidays I recalled many Christmases past celebrated with family, some present, some, sadly, gone. The phrase “Christmas past” moved me to watch the movie “The Man Who Invented Christmas.” It weaves the story about how Charles Dickens suffered through a grueling writing process to pen and publish his now famous novella “A Christmas Carol.” The movie re-enacts Christmases Past, Present, and Future delivering their messages to Scrooge.
What fascinated me was Dickens’s tortured efforts to write truths and still appeal to his readers.
In Victorian times workhouses and debtors’ prisons threatened many people, young children were sold on the street as drudges, and most of the public turned a blind eye to the misery. Dickens saw or heard about such things every day as he wandered about London. He collected comments he heard, horrors he observed, even recorded unusual surnames and peoples’ quirks in a notebook he carried. He used what he saw and heard about him in his stories. All this fodder swirled around in his head. In writing his Christmas story, Dickens pointed out all the cruelty and sordidness of London life, poured his anger and sadness into his words, to force his readers to recognize and empathize with the miserable. In the end, he provided hope by showing skinflint Scrooge could change and help his fellowman.
Many writers gather words, phrases, and names to use in their writing. A writer friend once said he goes out to talk with friends, to stimulate his writing juices, but then returns to his desk to be a man alone with his thoughts and a blank screen to fill. Most writers do. And like Dickens, writers hope to blend their emotional memories into their art.
Besides everyday interactions, writers read to gather facts as well as emotional memories. Here are a few books I’ve read that stimulated my writing with new ideas and facts.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer – fed my interest in the natural world and ways people once used what they found in nature
The Way of the Ship: A Square-Rigger Voyage in the Last Days of Sail by Derek Lundy – the subtitle tells it all
The Overstory by Richard Powell – an imaginative, emotional connection to the natural world
Spirits of San Francisco: Voyages Through the Unknown City by Gary Kamiya – a step back into various time periods of San Francisco’s past by the well-known chronicler of its history
What uniforms did Mexican Presidio soldiers wear in the 1800s?
Mexican soldiers wore uniforms of dark blue wool jackets with scarlet collars and cuffs and brass buttons, matching wool trousers, and wide-brimmed black hats. But for protection from indigenous peoples’ arrows, the soldiers wore leather coats that hung to their knees. They carried long lances and leather shields as shown in this photograph. This display is in the San Francisco Presidio museum on the site of the original Spanish Presidio. Because the soldiers often herded cattle and horses, rode as escorts for the friars, and carried mail between presidios, the cumbersome leather coats were shortened to jacket length. The jackets were made of antelope hide with red felt collars and cuffs. Antelope-hide leggings or breeches covered the soldiers’ legs.