Category: Literature

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January 31: War and Peace

My friend and writing buddy Glenda Funk of Idaho joined the slow readers’ group of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy for 2026. I’d read about this on a blog post by a writer in our Tuesday group and been intrigued. Sharon Roy was choosing to write a haiku after each of the 361 chapters., where readers read one chapter per day and listen to a podcast about it. The irony! War and Peace in haiku! I smiled and secretly wished I’d joined but feared I was too late. Next year, I told myself.

Then, I sent a picture of a stack of books through a text exchange asking Glenda which poetry book I should read next. Glenda is the most voracious poetry reader I know. She is a fast reader and is a good matchmaker to suggest the next book based on poets she knows her friends like and those she thinks they will enjoy next. She shared that she was still reading Instructions for Traveling West by Joy Sullivan because she is also reading War and Peace.

And that’s when it happened. Her next text had me joining a Substack group to be a slow reader this year.

Here is actual text footage of how a reader gets sucked into a challenge like War and Peace :

Screenshot

You know those movies where someone misses the train and has to run down the tracks and make a jump for it, praying they catch hold of the book party caboose? That was me. Instead of getting on at the station when it was pulling out on January 1, I waited until the last possible time to feasibly begin – – around 8 p.m. on January 30. Flailing hands and flying hair in a flurry of free-spiritedness like who cares if I have to read 31 chapters of War and Peace to catch up with everyone else? Like I’m some sort of reading ninja. I’m not. I have 31 chapters of War and Peace to read, and now I’m in a war zone with myself looking for some peace.

Perhaps I will use my silent reading hour this morning that I was going to use at the Silent Book Club on the Zebulon square in 1828 Coffee Company to catch up. Extreme weather caused its cancellation, so now, instead, I’ll be reading all all day at home, apparently with snow falling, by the fireplace with my own home brewed coffee in the way I always dream,. Or maybe I’ll finish Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover, this month’s Kindred Spirits reading group pick. Or, perhaps – just perhaps – I will pick a poetry book to devour. A Bit Much by Lyndsay Rush has my eye. Let’s face it: most likely it will be all of the above.

What are you reading today?

Tossing you a snowball – stay warm!

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January 28: Traumatic Tanka

I’m writing today’s poem using a Write the Story prompt to create a Tanka, which is a poem of 5 lines with syllable counts 5/7/5/7/7. I used Matthew 18;22 as inspiration for the final line of the poem.

Prompt: Mash Up Two Classic Fairy Tales into One Story

Words to be Used: fireplace, sword, grove, stoke, underbrush, mourn, seven, friendship, cardboard, giver

Fairy Tale Slain

green grove of friendship

stoke the fireplace with a sword

mourn cardboard ashes

givers lurk in underbrush

no seventy times seven

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January 27: In the Middle of a Long, Cold Winter

This company also publishes “Write The Poem” which I will also share in an upcoming blog post

I was browsing through our local used bookstore on a lunch break last week when, on my way out the door, a book caught my eye. Its title, Write the Story, glimmered in gold lettering down the spine, as if to plead: Hey, over here! See my sparkle? Take me home with you!

Already reaching for the doorknob, I changed course and went back to check it out. I expected a how-to on the writing process. Instead, I discovered the hidden treasure of a delightful writing challenge. Each page bore a titled topic with ten pre-determined (seemingly random) words to be used in the writing of a story.

The pages appeared to be blank except for one on which someone had penciled a story to satisfy one singular challenge and apparently moved on with life, abandoning the book and donating it to the bookstore, where it now rested in my hands. Treasure, indeed!

Poems to be written. Winter seeds of poetry, all scattered between the covers of one book. Destined for me, cast off like a stray no one else wanted, knowing all the while that a cultivator of words and writing would be most likely to pick it up, fall in love with it, take it home, and feed it.

I bought it and realized that other members of my small-group Stafford Challenge writers must have a copy. When we commit to writing a poem a day for a year, we all need a little prompting from time to time when the well runs dry or life gets too busy to think deeply like a poet. Once back inside the car, I turned on the heat and warmed up. I ordered three more copies online from the parking lot to send to Glenda Funk, Barb Edler, and Denise Krebs upon their arrival. Then I took a few snapshots to send them in the mean time.

Today’s title: In the Middle of a Long, Cold Winter

Words: opera, redeem, razor, lungs, grace, futuristic, tread, vest, powder, milkshake

In the Middle of a Long, Cold Winter

like that one lingering note

concluding a futuristic opera
treading frozen spring water

winter cleanses our lungs

razor-sharp alveoli icicles fall
sun breaks out in a crescendo
of seasonal transition
melting the white powder
milkshake from the mountainside
grace of its forgiving kiss
beckoning crocus, groundhog-like peepers
stretching up through frozen ground
ready to crawl out of bed
emerge from quilted slumber
shed their corm-sewn bud vests and
sing a new song



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January 26 – A Found Poem

Today, I’m using a comprehension strategy to get to know a book character by writing a found poem. I’m taking words and snippets off the page and writing a character poem about Basil Cannonfield from Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. In a classroom, this can help students remember characters; in the adult world of reading where we read books with so many different characters, a journal of character notes comes in handy to keep them all straight.

Basil Cannonfield

street performer

tips welcome

soulful, folksy voice

Chalice regular

total-body singer

teacher-turned-musician

poor either way

girlfriend Katrina breadwinner

in his thirties

tousled, shoulder length hair

scraggly beard

attempted mustache

sister’s caregiver

robbed by her ex

eccentric or genius?

both: definitely both

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January 25 – Mallory’s Birthday

she’s growing up fast

thirty nine years old today……

still my baby girl

Happy birthday to my first-born child today! She’s a kid at heart, and she loves to read. When she was little, we’d pile up on blankets or beds for book picnics – – she, her sister and I would do nothing but read all day long while the boys were out fishing. Last year, she read 144 books, stomping my 20 down to a pancake compared to her skyscraper. She still calls them her “chapter books.” Today, instead of raising a glass to my daughter, I open a book. It’s what we do best in our DNA.

Happy Birthday, Mallory!

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It’s Snowing Books!

One minute we’re expecting snow along with the ice storm of the century, but the next it’ll be 75 degrees and sunny. There’s a chance of snowfall, ranging anywhere from 0″ to 145.” I’ve heard it all this week, and I guess it’s safe to say we’ve prepared for all or nothing, just as they’ve said: prepare for the worst, hope for the best. And The Weather Channel is the best place to find a time loop where you live the same ten minutes on repeat. It may well be the portal for time travelers to take a jaunt in time somewhere far more stable than here.

I’m not sure what I’d take with me, but no matter where I am, all I really need are books, dogs, a comfy chair and a cup of coffee. My TBR stack is taller than I am, and I keep reading blog after blog after blog. This morning, Tom Ryan’s Substack featured the most joyful photos I’ve seen all year ~ his dog Emily (Samwise in the background) leaping for joy. He and his two dogs have just move to Cape Cod from the White Mountains of New Hampshire and are walking the woods where Mary Oliver wrote much of her poetry.

Today will be a day of quiet, peaceful living here on the Johnson Funny Farm an hour south of Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport, right on the flight path where we use our Flight Tracker app to check where all the planes have left and where there going. Fun times. Quiet: at least, that’s what’s planned, but things can go sideways here pretty fast. Fifteen times in the past five minutes, there have been earth-shaking gunshots out here in the deep rural country ~ deer? ducks? Who knows? The important thing is that the dogs are here tucked safely in our bed, the gas logs have plenty of propane, we’re stocked up on candles and have 12 pouches of tuna, a dozen boiled eggs, and cheese and crackers. And instant coffee.

Let the reading commence! Wherever this day finds you, even if your power goes out, I hope you stay warm and cozy.

the book is better

than any movie ever

our own minds film scenes

pennies, nickels, dimes

won’t buy a movie ticket

reading a book: free!

I’m currently reading Theo of Golden by Allen Levi.

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Verse Novels Make Me Smile

For the next 3 weeks, I’m taking our media specialists on tours of different media centers in our state to gather ideas for updating our own media centers. We were on a tour today when one middle school media center had a section completely dedicated to verse novels – and a poster definition, too! I felt my whole heart warm as I looked at the fabulous display and smiled – –here is a media specialist who is curating a collection for a kid after my own heart. Yes! I’m cheering!

verse novel fever

starts with but one heartwarming

poetic story

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Deep Sea Abecedarian Poem

Yesterday’s host for our third and final day of the January Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com was Denise Krebs of California. You can read her full prompt, her poem, and the poems of others here. She is one of my small group writing members in The Stafford Challenge, and I’m proud to call her a dear friend. We met in person at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and have presented together there a few times. When she’s not busy writing books and poetry, she’s off visiting grandchildren or riding her bike through the desert with her husband, coming home to a long-standing family home that she, her sister, and her husband restored.

The Deep Sea Parade

an artistry of angelfish
a buffoonery of blowfish
a charm of chum
a dazzle of dragonfish
an eloquence of eel
a flamboyance of flying fish
a gallancy of grouper
a harmony of humpback whales
an illustration of icthyosaur
a jubilance of jellyfish
a kinship of krill
a lumination of lanternsharks
a majesty of manatees
a narrowmind of needlefish
an openarmory of octopus
a pulmonation of pufferfish
a quarrel of quahog
a radiance of ribbonfish
a soldiering of seahorses
a thundering of trumpetfish
a union of unicorn fish
a vault of vampire squid
a whiskering of walrus
a xanadu of xiphosura
a yubadubdub of yellow soapfish
a zooband of zebra turkeyfish

and I joined the parade as the mermaid caboose
come join in, mermaids and mermen! 

We’ll be a murmuration ~
the finest mermaid nation!

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Year 3 of The Stafford Challenge Kicks Off Today

Have you ever wondered whether you could write daily?

Do you love poetry and prose?

f Are you strapped for time and wonder about the commitment?

Wonder no more.

Come on, take my hand and walk down the shore. See the beauty?

Join the Year 3 kickoff of The Stafford Challenge today. It’s not too late to sign up, and you may just ask yourself what took you so long to join. This writing circle is completely free (you can make a donation only if you want – and I did not donate until the 3rd year). You will meet writers from all over the world, be inspired by them, and have the option to join a small group writing circle (you can join with others you don’t know or form your own like we did), where you will share and form some of the closest long-distance relationships you’ve ever had. Even if you don’t consider yourself a strong writer – – or a writer at all.

Come on, stick your big toe in the water. It feels refreshing in here.

My small writing group meets the first Monday of each month ~ Barb Edler of Iowa, Glenda Funk of Idaho, and Denise Krebs of California. We catch up on life, we talk about what we’re reading and what we’re writing, and we share our poetry. Sometimes we write during our Zoom. You know that poem The Cure by Kate Baer in her latest book How About Now? It’s how I feel about my writing circles. This is so much more than breakfast.

Today is the kickoff, and you can sign up at this link. I would love to see you there today. I’ll send you a wave from my tiny screen.

Come on, dive in! You can swim or float, and either is divine.

writing, belonging

to a group of likeminded

poets, anchors me

Come on. I’ll be waiting.