history observations pragmatic historian writing

Why Are There Dinosaurs in My Plant Catalog?

A couple of months ago, I received a Farmer Seed and Nursery spring catalog in the mail. Having never received one of these before, I can only surmise that the Arbor Day Foundation shared my information with the company. I became a member of the Arbor Day Foundation in November 2019 and when I got my membership materials, something in them indicated they would sell my info for marketing purposes. Let me just say, aside…

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inspiration writing

Speedy Writing Assignment

During the last meeting of our local writers group, we did a speedy writing assignment. This happens when group members run out of things to share. We didn’t have any sort of assignment prepared in advance, so we took the first line of a book one of our members had with her and used that as a writing prompt. The book was The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe and the first line was: “The…

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ideas observations writing

Notebooks So Beautiful They Are Stultifying

Hubby and I were at Barnes & Noble the other day. Hubby hangs out in the coffee shop while I peruse the books. During our latest trip, I saw this end cap of beautiful journals. Blank (or blank-ish, as the case may be) journals are always compelling to me, just like adult coloring books. I can’t not pause and wonder at writing in them. But, also like adult coloring books, I always realize that journals…

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