BY HELEN CURRIE FOSTER April 1! It’s spring, with a riot of bluebonnets this year. Plus paintbrush! Winecup! Verbena! Prairie celestials (so lovely)! And within the fence, safe from our marauding burros, the roses are opening their petals and sharing their beauty.  Humans have been growing and hybridizing roses for millenia. I favor those with deep rose fragrance. This year the sniff prize goes to Madame Isaac Pereire, but Zephirine Drouhine is a strong contender as well—sweet perfume, but no thorns! Blooming with pride are Cramoisi Superieur, fun to pronounce ..read more

By Francine Paino, a.k.a. F. Della Notte I love movies, and I’m sure there are plenty of difficulties for actors to keep the emotions required of a scene fresh from take to take and working out of the order the story.  But it’s live theater that hold a magical universe for me, beginning with the fact that the actor on stage doesn’t have the benefit of do-overs. If he/she makes a mistake, he/she must cover it and incorporate it into the story or the dance. I have just seen the world premiere of Ballet Austin’s  Poe. A ballet on the life and madness of Edgar Allen Poe. This ballet ..read more

  by Kathy Waller In November 2019, a Texas woman was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for mailing explosive devices to President Barak Obama and Governor Greg Abbot.  The crime had occurred in October 2016. The break: Investigators found a cat hair under the address label on one of the packages and matched it to one of the suspect’s cats. The following post, reprinted from the blog Telling the Truth, Mainly, includes facts not released to the news media at the time–the rest of the story. * AUSTIN — Three cats suspected of helping owner Julia Poff mail explosive devices to fo ..read more

By Helen Currie Foster The three burros who live with Alice MacDonald Greer, lawyer/amateur sleuth protagonist of my Texas Hill Country legal thrillers, bear a strong resemblance to the three burros who rule our patch of the Hill Country. We manage our small piece of the planet for native grasses and birds under the county Wildlife Management Program. Today I received our spring box of blue grama and buffalo grass seed, for re-seeding bare patches with native grass. (More below on bare patches.) The burro idea sprang full-blown into life at a wedding on the banks of the Blanco River years ..read more

Francine Paino a.k.a. F. Della Notte I sat with my cup of café e latte and looked around. The paper with the picture on the kitchen table intrigued me. No, I thought. Gotta clean this place first. I chugged my cup of coffee, grabbed my cleaning supplies, and began. While I twisted and turned, scrubbing granite countertops to a gleam, something whizzed past my eye – a cup of espresso splashed its contents into the air, and then all of it dissolved into nothingness. My heart sank. Persistence had arrived. No passive muse, this one. She was furious. She’d been prodding me for days to try my hand ..read more

The Joy of a Commonplace Book By Laura Oles I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across a quote, an idea or something else I wanted to remember and thought, “I need to write that down.” So I did. Over and over and over. In countless notebooks and journals and on post it notes. The problem I found is that, while committing something to paper is an important first step, it is only a first step. There are many moments where I’ve written something down only to lose it amongst some ephemera, discovered only again when I’m looking for something else.   It’s like finding twenty bucks i ..read more

“But at my back I always hear time’s wingèd chariot drawing near…” (Andrew Marvell, 1621-1678)   Today in pre-dawn darkness, the house quiet except for the murmuring furnace, my characters were already at me, barking orders: “More! More smells, tastes, experiences! More about me! Tell people what I’m thinking, what I’m experiencing, what I’m worrying about!” They’re right. Readers want to know their favorite mystery protagonists. Why? Because readers are in league with them, walking in their shoes. Readers know that stepping into a protagonist’s sensory experience—smells, food ..read more

FRANCINE PAINO A.K.A. F. DELLA NOTTE So this is Christmas – And what have you done?  So begins the first verse of John Lennon’s 1971 hit song. His good wishes toward wo/mankind had a political message wrapped in the lines. But politics aside, it was and still is a good message. But the question, What have you done? requires some thought. What have you done to keep the Christmas spirit alive throughout the year? What have you done for your fellow man? For your family? For your neighbor? Hard self-examination is required. Before tackling what we have done throughout the year to keep th ..read more

By Laura Oles “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” While there is some debate as to whether this quote belongs to William Butler Yeats, the sentiment is one that has stayed with me, particularly throughout my writing career.  One of the best things about being a writer is that it requires ongoing education.  I love that my job demands regular research. I’ve gone down more rabbit holes that I care to admit, but it’s this spark of learning something new that fuels my enthusiasm for my fiction.   I experienced a wonderful “lighting o ..read more

by Helen Currie Foster Now and then, when I sneak a book off the shelf, glancing around to be sure no one notices it’s a children’s book…or pick up an old LeCarré…I’m grateful for the joy of rereading. Rather like upcoming Thanksgiving dinners! Think of their literary content! Suspense, of course–is that turkey really done? Imminent peril–are the drippings sufficient for decent gravy? Strong characters–the usual suspects are arriving at the table! Ethical challenges–no comments on the burnt marshmallow topping on the yams. And, hopefully, enough whipped cream ..read more