Soul Food

Soul Food

So much of my life revolves around food. Purchasing, preparing, eating, and cleaning up food! Even as I start to write this post, my mind wanders to the kitchen and the squash-apple soup I plan to make for lunch. I’m not a great cook or even super passionate about cooking, but I sure love to…

For the Love of Color

For the Love of Color

Is anything more exciting to a writer than a new notebook and pen? Or to a child-artist than a fresh box of crayons? The other day while packing, I came across the green-and-yellow tin of 64 Crayola colors. One of my first acquisitions (as a collector not a kid Picasso), today it holds my hot-glue…

This Homesick World

This Homesick World

Among the many themes in my books, the motif of HOME—or perhaps more precisely, houses—surprises me most with its broad-spectrum presence. I never planned to weave those ideas into the writing, was hardly even aware of them. But in this homesick world, maybe that’s not unexpected at all. Recently I suffered an attack…of nostalgia. Did…

The Tin Collector

The Tin Collector

After viewing my constantly growing collection of kitchen tins, a church friend in Coquimbo mentioned (with a smirk) that he’d seen me on TV—some program about hoarders? Although we enjoyed a good laugh at the joke, I asked myself, How did I come to be known as the tin collector in my town? In Chile…