Can Bob Ross help break your writer’s block? It happened in almost every episode of The Joy of Painting, the PBS show featuring soft-spoken, be-fro’d landscapes painter Bob Ross: The “bravery test.” Watching the soothing reruns on Netflix in the small hours of the morning, bleary and feeding or rocking an infant, or swaying on my feet as I scrubbed and sanitized a medium-sized regiment of plastic Dr. Brown’s bottle parts (if you know, you know), I would find myself lulled into the rhythm of his on-camera painting: listing off the oil paints on his palette, slapping the bejesus out of the paint ..read more

When you plan a vacation – a real one, not a “quaracation,” for God’s sake – is the destination important to you? Obviously. A strong sense of place is what attracts me to almost every book that stays on my library shelves. I’ve even found myself compelled to visit some of the places I’ve only read about in fiction, just to get a sense of the scenery myself. A great setting can keep me engaged in a story even if the pacing and plot are taking the scenic route to the narrative climax. In fact, the fastest way to compel me to snap up a new book is to begin the jacket summary with the phrase, “S ..read more