Mirka Muse

  Or— What Would I Do Instead? Our neighborhood trusted gas station/car repair shop has had the same sole owner for fifty years. I wasn’...

  Where I live, in California’s bay area, there is basically only one season. Lucky us, the season is SPRING . It goes something like th...

  Or— THIS STORIED PANDEMIC At the two-year mark of the first Covid-19 global pandemic lockdowns, it occurred to me that this life alter...

  Our lives are filled with possibilities that haven’t materialized. Stories are conjured of things that do.         When the story-well...

       & Keep Marching The month we’re ushering in, March, gets its name from Mars, the Roman god of war. The Roman calendar actually ...

  We live in a world that says self-promotion is what effective individuals do, and if you want to be one, you must as well.   Just glan...

  A few years back, a friend who only lives with humans asked me what use are my cats. “They don’t, like, improve anything. You take care ...

                                        --- Or NOT If you hang out in writerly chat boards or groups, there is a lot of advice bandied abo...

       Political activists frame their efforts as wanting to make a difference.      Artists wonder if their art will ever make a differen...

  There are beautiful coffee-table books about rooms. Rooms where famous people live, rooms where important events took place, rooms that ma...

  I had an epiphany when reflecting on last week’s private events. What made me happiest was not having finished draft #2 of my current  M...

  For the one percent who do not know what a troll is, there are two definitions. 1.       (In folklore) An ugly creature depicted as eith...

  Yes, Virginia, I’ve seen it with my own eyes When DS was in preschool, one of my mothers’-support group friends related a scandal in her...

  This week is “Happy Holidays” greeting time. Everywhere I go, this is part of casual exchanges.      Regardless of which holidays, these...

  Christmas lights all around.   I have two close friends who, like me, are Jewish. Unlike me, they feel “excluded” at the sights and so...

  The saying in Hebrew that describes rain, speaks of the gates of heaven opening. Admittedly, it’s more meaningful for a land that is often...

  If the title doesn’t ring a bell, listen to this speech — The iconic line reads: “ Yesterday, December 7, 1941— a date which will live...

  The writerly voice is the personality of the narration. This blog, for example, has its own voice. A touch of angst, a sprinkle of wistf...

  Thanksgiving, after all   This Thanksgiving, rather than think turkey, (i.e. a mass-slaughter time for animal lovers) pumpkin, (why ca...

  November 16, 2001, was a milestone for all who contemplate such in regards to storytelling. This is the twentieth anniversary of the rel...

  I had one of those epiphanies, where I realized that moments of joy in my life were neither created nor re-created by me.   Put anothe...

  So I had some not good news the other day. How does one write on bad-news days? For that matter, how does one focus on any sort of imp...

  Literary success conjures up visions of going on multi-cities tour, winning the Pulitzer Prize, having one of your books get to the top of...

  October, like its mirror April, is a month of changes. Days turn from pleasantly moderate to cold, only to abruptly switch to oppressive h...

  Many years ago, my mother, herself in her sixties, had a friend who was in her thirties. Her friend, of Japanese descent, told my mother t...

  I have this orchid plant that I’ve given up for dead too many times to count.  It was given to me too long ago to remember who the giver w...