Mirka Muse

We adopted three cats from a local shelter, and the quest for their names was in full swing. The shelter gave them perfectly good names, bu...

Where did I leave my favorite pen? For as long as I can remember I had a tendency to put things someplace, then forget where. Having ma...

Medals are funny things. I know, I know. You’re thinking medals can be many things: heavy, beautiful, or pointless. But funny? Toda...

I must have inherited my parents’ dislike of “so what” purposeless or banal writing. A story, a blog post, heavens- even a comment on anoth...

A dear friend, whom  I've  known since seventh grade, lamented at her lack of worldly achievements while her friends were reaping the r...

I've  read that the author of Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie, kept ordering Brussels sprouts but never ate them. His explanation was that he ...

When I look at a book cover, I see the author’s name.  When they are not the same person,  I see the author and the illustrator’s names. On...

James Joyce’s wife, Nora Barnacle, once asked him, “Why don’t you write books people can read?” Now if your name is Nora Barnacle, (can...

Imagine having a full-time job reading tweets. Well, there are such jobs. I read that the CIA reads five million tweets a day. By the t...

One of those odd facts that chimed my bells this morning was  that at the 1900 Paris Olympics winners were awarded paintings instead of me...

I marvel at the persistence required to write. To complete a manuscript. To revise and revise. To submit and re-submit. All this, aga...

Years ago I gave my mother a hand-painted mug that said NO KVETCHING. My mother is no longer with us, but the mug is on our kitchen count...

There are many articles on Voice in writing. PhD and graduate theses written on this subject define and analyze. Editors often say they ...

Our next-to last presidential campaign featured the winning slogan, CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN. I wasn’t sure then what it meant.  All I k...

From the middle of June and to the end of August, I take a break from first-drafting new stories. What starts out as a joyous way to re-cha...

What should a writer do when they find published books a bit too much like their WIP? (=work in progress) And then on a kid-lit chat boar...

…*NT= New Technology= new to me=my new cellphone. DD & DS informed me that a text message is much preferred to that old fashioned ...

Apparently the book scans sale numbers for The Cuckoo’s Calling were all of five hundred sales in the U.S.A. despite very strong reviews. ...

© Shelagh Duffett Y’all know by now that I am a fan of Shelagh Duffett’s folk art. She was DS’s discovery on  EBay,   and continues t...

Summertime-- and the living is easy. I spent a whole afternoon watching a series on YouTube , from Israeli television, about various conspi...

Synopsis done. Two revisions by self, and two after Beta readers had a go at it. I should be getting into submission mode.  But I’m not su...