December 2023 This Gifts from Wrtiers section continues a tradition that I’d begun on my website when first it commenced in 2013. Many...

30 December 2022 When I was industriously labouring in Office World at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Dead Week was the name that one co-worker gave to the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Generally speaking, Dead Week in federal-service, that would be the U.S. Government, refers to that period of Use-or-Lose Annual Leave. Those vacation hours must be used by the employee before the end of the year, or he’ll lose it. Me, I used my “annual leave” on a monthly, if

Christmas 2022 This children’s book was published in 1996. The authoress is Susan Meddaugh, and I have to thank her for one of the most...

Christmas 2022 The Shopping Quilt Shopping is a woman’s art for what to hold and for what to part from: the past, or even the present. Shopping is the path to a heaven of abundant treasures, not merely the material pleasures of dresses and shoes and hats with feathers but of faith in the future: a closet of beauty a drawer of silken finery a box of cherished cotton a shelf not forgotten that guards what no shop can sell — Hope where only God foretells What will be and What ca

Noël 2022 Gifts from This Writer Twas the night before Christmas and I will not deny I was editing scenes of a novel on the sly. I’d been...

12 December 2021 This morning, the storm door officially opened in northern California — in ALL of California. The portal flung open...

Christmas Eve 2020 The following paragraphs are taken directly from the 1949 edition of The Little Golden Books, published by Golden Press of New York: The Author and the Artist This Christmas favorite was written in 1922 by Clement C. Moore for his own children. He later published it as A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS. Dr. Moore taught Biblical history in New York City. In the neighborhood where the poem was written an annual Christmas party is given. At this party , some well-k

7 December 2020 I am presently progressing, or plowing, through the translation of the first chapter of the Final Book, Book 7, of THE...

Christmas 2019 One of my all-time favorite tele-visual feasts at Christmastime is Episode #10 of Season 1 of Early Edition. This vintage...

Christmas 2019 Western Gifts from Writers These literary gifts are from writers of Western Civilization, but not necessarily from writers...

17 December 2018 I awoke this morning at 7 or so. This awakening was not a matter of being fully awake. I did not open my eyes. My...

Christmas is the time of giving and sharing. I feel especially generous this Christmas season, and I wish to give to readers of this website — scenes from my life, specifically from its past phases. As I move to new stages of my life, I wish to share with you the joy that is the vital spark that moves anyone to a new phase of life. This essay celebrates passages: personal, professional, and emotional — the transitions that are moments to affirm and to applaud and to honor, a

Christmas 2017 The Good Shepherd: Psalm 23 Briefly, I knew a sheepherder from the Basque country in Spain. He was a man of immense...

Making Spirits Bright: Dean’s Take on Peace on Earth The song “Peace on Earth” was written by Peggy Lee and Sonny Burke for the Disney...

Mid-December 2017 Last week, during the end of this month of December, 2017, I awoke with the strains in my head of the duet that Ginger...

December 2017 Recently I saw this advertising ploy on a package of cookies that I usually enjoy: Unapologetically Delicious . First, I...

This holiday season, I offer frivolity and folksy gifts from writers for friends, fans and first-time readers of this website. I also...

Yesterday, we were oot and aboot, as the Scots would say. Two weeks of rain, fog, low clouds, high clouds, mid-level clouds and steamy...

Christmas is a time for love. There are perhaps as many kinds of love as there are kinds of people, but love, in essence, is a...

Christmas comes but once a year and yet the Christmas spirit can endure throughout the year, given the proper attitude and the right books! There are some words that only the heart can express. Those words must be chosen with care, by the writer and by the reader! This holiday season offers us a time to look ahead and to look back, hopefully and happily, at some gifts from writers of yore. The fables of Jean de La Fontaine are little chef d’oeuvres of charm, humor, wisdom, co