Upcoming spring 2024 release by Sidekick Press! Scold’s Bridle is a book of five short stories about three women linked throughout history. The main characters, Rebecca, Delfa, and Rae Ann, embody the archetypes of mother, maiden, and crone. Each story occurs in a different time and place. It’s a quick and riveting read. ARCs are available for review on Book Sirens. To read a FREE advanced copy and leave a much appreciated review (to be posted in Amazon and Goodreads), just follow this link to the Scold’s Bridle profile on the Book Sirens website. SCOLD’S BRIDLE on BOOK SIRENS The post Scold’s ..read more

We were sure we had plenty of time to change terminals at O’Hare as we lollygagged to the international security gate until we rounded a corner and joined the horde of people bunched together in a white hallway packed with strollers, backpacks, drunken businessmen in khakis, wriggling toddlers, and frantic moms, all afraid to miss flights. Some of us surely would. Inching toward the security kiosk in fits and starts, passport in sweaty grip, the reflective walls reminiscent of Plato’s Cave drifted my mind to alternate realities. We finally made it to the kiosk with minutes to spare and then my ..read more

            I lived with my family in a one hundred-year-old barn of a house. The old place was solid as a rock, made of old-growth fir, double walls in some places, which was lucky because there was no insulation from the damp Pacific Northwest chill. A solitary room off of the kitchen, probably a formal dining room in days gone by, had ancient, crusty carpeting and dark green walls, paper-thin windows. It was not a comfortable room. We piled it with a comfy couch, the piano my husband’s grandmother insisted we buy even though no one was ..read more

I had an hour to or so to kill before class. I dawdled over lunch, Tuscan white beans in tomato sauce and tomato, onion, and oregano salad with a short pour of cold white wine. The lingering flavors were mine alone, no one to share them with, no one to share the empty hour. Because I am here alone, because I am having an adventure, damn it. So, I wandered into the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, through the wrong door at first, of course, walked around the block and in the entrance. It was wild to imagine being so rich and fancy that the open courtyard and soaring columns were just your house. Fresc ..read more

INTERVIEW: Steph Auteri and Ronna Russell: How To Write About Sexual Intimacy Without Making Your Reader Cringe…. The post New Interview! appeared first on Ronna Russell ..read more

A friend and fellow writer from my former hometown writing group has released her memoir, Straight Enough and I gotta tell you, this book kicked my ass. The lengths we will go to to deny ourselves, the stranglehold of fear and ego, the twisted mindfuck of religiosity… and the incredible relief of letting go is all very familiar. Straight Enough will stick in your head, infiltrate your heart, and stun you with beauty and pain. This raw emotional story of the subjugation of self considers how well we know ourselves and each other. It brings you nose to nose to the mirror and dares you to look aw ..read more

I am waiting for the call telling me that my mother has taken her last breath and I do not know what to do with myself. I am not sure how to spend this time. I walked the dogs, bathed, ate breakfast, doomscrolled, stared at my phone, ransacked boxes of old photos, searching for that one picture of her. I found it and many others. Pictures of her with my children, at their births, birthday parties, reading stories. I see now how hard she tried to connect with me and how difficult I made it. My favorite times with my mother, as an adult, were the times there are no pictures of. The early morning ..read more

We headed south, stopping at a winery in Alabama that looked like this: Then to Gulf Shores which, predictably, looked like this: Then to Tallahassee: And finally to a much anticipated pecan farm in the backwoods of Georgia, where we intended to stay for a few days, and that is when shit got weird. We stopped at the intersection that passes for a town just prior to the turnoff, knowing we would need something for dinner. Unsure of where to go, we took a chance on a buffet that offered several varieties of unidentifiable creamy food interspersed with fried food things, all of which tasted lik ..read more

The next day we hiked to a waterfall in the sweltering Tennessee woods, a journey of mosquitoes, whining meniscus, and arthritic toes. But we were out there, man. Our much fitter friend tactfully stopped occasionally to take pictures, allowing us time to sweat and breathe. This kind of thing, but better. Miles are longer than they used to be, but we made it to the falls, eased our achy parts down onto the rocks and put our feet in the icy water, watching a bunch of kids from the campground climb around barefoot over the rocks underneath a futile sign that said, “Control Your Children.” Either ..read more

It turns out when you arrive at a campground after dark after having driven for eleven hours with two dogs and a refrigerator you found out doesn’t work the night before you leave for a two week trip, there is more than one way to start a campfire after you discover that you forgot all the fire starting thingies. Only certified, labeled, heat-treated firewood was allowed inside the national forest, because of bad hitchhiking bugs, and please scrounge for kindling because it’s everywhere as you are in a forest, the website said. So we stopped at a roadside market just outside the campground fo ..read more