On Monday, a Denver Post columnist wrote an article about this spring’s first-ever prom at Florence Crittenton High School for teen mothers, and the article elicited negative comments that so upset me that at first I was at a loss for words. I’ve been working on a project involving the school’s first-ever leadership class, and that class has turned the prom into a hands-on leadership project. Those who complain about the prom say it’s a reward for bad behavior. What they may not know is that this prom is also a practical training program in goal-setting, planning, and execution. It’s teaching this class the very accountability the naysayers complain they don’t have.

(more…)

Their mini-marshmallow stature and pre-intellectual chatter marked them as targets: those undersized, over-bright kids who get stuffed into lockers by eighth graders. Cassie made beeping noises. Talia talked so fast that the ends of sentences tumbled out ahead of the beginnings. Cami, one of only two seventh graders, smirked at both the chatty sixth graders and the only slightly less chatty adult: me. But during our eight-week Lighthouse Young Writers Workshop, I discovered they would all survive, because they’d learned to sublimate the horror of middle school by pouring it into creative writing.

(more…)

Remember how I whined earlier this summer that my vegetable seeds weren’t sprouting? Be careful what you whine about. Now my zucchini plants are arm-wrestling with my tomato plant for square-foot-garden domination.

My zucchini plants are arm-wrestling with my tomato plant for square-foot-garden domination.

For me, life is an endless series of reminders of my favorite movies and books, and gardening is no exception. I’m a remedial gardener, as you can tell from the staking system I use for my tomato plant – adding one bamboo stake after another until it looks like a bundle of pickup sticks, and the whole thing still leans. But I do know stories…

(more…)

Perhaps you’ve heard there are only two stories: 1) someone goes on a journey, or 2) a stranger comes to town. So, there’s really only one story, because “a stranger comes to town” is the flip side of “someone goes on a journey.” As a traveler and writer, I appreciate both. When I can’t go on a journey, I love the journey to come to me.

Denver’s Lighthouse LitFest is a two-week exploration of the craft, business, and camaraderie of the writer’s life.

That’s what it is to have Denver’s Lighthouse LitFest “come to town” each year, a two-week exploration of the craft, business, and camaraderie of the writer’s life. That’s what it was to have my friend Elizabeth drive from San Diego to Denver to join me for this June’s LitFest. She’d given me a party and a place to stay during my recent book tour, and I was eager to return the favor, and to share this amazing event with another writer.

(more…)

I’m growing a box of dirt. This was not my intention. I was hoping for vegetables. A tomato plant is growing at the back of the box, but I can’t take credit for that. My friend Kelli gave it to me, informing me, “It’s called The Mortgage Lifter because it’s so easy to grow that the guy who created it sold enough plants to pay off his mortgage.”

I was hoping for vegetables.

For my birthday, I asked my husband to help me build a square foot garden. Dale’s a handy guy, and I think he enjoyed the idea almost as much as I did. He looked so cheerful walking amid the lumber, tools, and bags of soil at Home Depot.

(more…)

Remember the time you were stuck at the side of the road all night, trying to hitchhike your way to Andorra? Then there’s the time you spent four hours in a Madrid train station, trying to buy tickets, only to be thrown out by the ticket seller because you were a weeping wreck. Or how about the time you somehow lost your money and tube pass and had to hike four hours across drizzly London, using an A-Z to find your way back to your squat?

(No, not that kind of squat!) This life-sized artwork graced the wall of a cat piss-drenched room in Amsterdam. It was too big to remove & hide.

These lowlights of our trips can be excruciating in the moment, but later prove to be some of the best things that happened to you. Why are lowlights (as opposed to highlights) so great for the adventurous traveler? Here are five reasons the lowlights can be the real reason we leave home.

(more…)

I don’t feel like I’ve had a day off unless I get out in the sun and do something. Sometimes I almost work harder on my days off - skiing, hiking, biking, gardening - than I do on workdays, when I spend most of the day sitting at a keyboard. Playing outside relaxes me, even more than meditation or yoga - talk about hard work!

Playing outside relaxes me, even more than meditation or yoga - talk about hard work!

In spring, I garden, and in summer, I hike. Both are simple ways to honor the adventurer in me, in between big-ticket challenges. On those spring days when the garden doesn’t need me, I do easy hikes, to ramp up to my summer push into the high country. Early in the season, I’m still a bit lazy, not yet ready to rise at dawn to reach the top of a mountain before afternoon storms turn me into a small but effective lightning rod. So, in May, I tend to keep my hikes close to town and no-brainer.

(more…)

My mother didn’t raise me, my father’s mother did. He called her Mom, so I thought that was her name. Grampa bought me Dr. Seuss books, but Mom taught me to read them. One of my earliest memories is reading to her, “Hand, hand, fingers, thumb. Dum ditty, Dum ditty, Dum dum dum.” My love of books is forever entwined with the comfort of Mom’s lap.

Grampa bought me Dr. Seuss books, but it was Mom who taught me to read them.

Mom used to take me with her to the bowling alley. I still have a scar from a massive splinter that pierced my knee while I crawled on the wooden benches. When I was eight, I begged her to teach me to play. I bowled competitively until I was 16, but never became as good as Mom. My high game was 216, hers was 278 - she rolled that one in her early 70s. She doesn’t bowl anymore, but she didn’t quit until arthritis stopped her when she was about 79.

(more…)

I am not a poet. This is not humility, false or otherwise, nor is it an excuse, but a simple fact. Yet I appreciate poetry, and every now and then I feel compelled to write a poem, though I have no real idea how. Yesterday I went to a gathering of poets at the Denver Woman’s Press Club and listened to several club members and audience members share their lyrical thoughts. Here’s what I took with me when I left:

A Balloon in My Car

Where are the nametags and the tea and the ice?
I don’t know poetry, but I know how to reach and boil and tumble the cubes.
After the reading, a balloon in my car nods in approval.

(more…)