The Power of a Name

The Power of a Name

It’s HOT in our city of Coquimbo, Chile, during this final week of the Advent season. Still, the port’s most iconic landmark, the Third Millennium Cross, towers above the summer haze on the highest hill. A testament to the power of the Name, as I reminded a group of women at a year-end tea. During…

No Small Potatoes

No Small Potatoes

Up in Fort Fairfield, Aroostook County, in my home state of Maine, they hold a Potato Blossom Festival each July, complete with a parade, reigning queen, games, contests, and special events of all kinds. I understand this summer marked the 75th year. In Maine, the potato industry is no small potatoes. That’s obvious from the…

Blue Plate Special

Blue Plate Special

From the beginning and all the way to the end of this post, I’m not sure if I wanted to write about the color blue or dishes of comfort food. But hear me out. What I’m trying to share, I think, is that this final day of our trip to the Chiloé Islands has been…

Building Projects

Building Projects

Everything’s built up. That’s what we noticed most as we left the palafito (cottage-on-stilts) where we’d lodged in Castro and headed for the village of Rilán. The landscape of the Chiloé Islands features many examples of architectural creativity, but today the road was lined with building projects. For starters, we could have arrived at the…

Home Sweet Palafito

Home Sweet Palafito

One of the most iconic scenes in southern Chile’s Chiloé Islands must surely be the alley of palafitos, picturesque houses built on weatherworn posts, that rises from a tidal flat to the right of the highway as you drive into the provincial capital of Castro. After lunch on the first afternoon of our anniversary trip…

Back to Chiloé

Back to Chiloé

Have you read Destiny at Dolphin Bay yet? Though sales mean a lot, I’d love even more to connect with readers who love my books and story “universe” as much as I do. So today I’m launching us on a virtual trip to Chile’s southern islands. Like the character Melissa Travis from Desert Island Diaries,…

Uncovering the Cover

Uncovering the Cover

As you scroll down a few paragraphs, you’ll see the cover for Destiny at Dolphin Bay revealed. This first book of mine, written during our last year in Chile’s Chiloé Islands, has had almost as many trial tapas as opening chapters. But today we’re unveiling the final cover. The design you find here combines many…

Desperate for… Love

Desperate for… Love

During a recent exercise in finding writing topics, I was challenged to type “Desperate for…” into my Google browser. You want to know what I discovered? People are desperate for attention, approval, and affluence (usually they call that last one “money” or “a loan.”) Women are desperate for a miracle, a man, a baby, or…