Santa Fe Trail Bicentennial Year 2021
2021 marked the 200th Anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail. First and foremost a trade route, it began with a man hard-pressed for cash: William Bucknell. (2 minute read)
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Blog - Page 3 of 6 - Frances Schoonmaker
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Start a Storytelling Tradition
Story telling during the holidays is a great way introduce family to its traditions and to bring family closer together. An example of a family story illustrates how you can introduce story telling and build a tradition. But you don’t have to wait for the holidays.
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Blatant Self Promotion: Learning to Celebrate My Work
BSP and Learning to Celebrate my work are challenging. Nobody likes a braggart. But there are times when it is right to celebrate your work with others. Learning to self-promote is a critical part of the writer’s life. 2 minute read.
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Circumstance and Plot
I can’t remember how my fascination with trains began. My brothers and I used to watch for smoke from the steam engine that pulled train cars along tracks that made their way just beyond the hills to the southeast of our farm. On a clear day, you could hear the train chugging its way between
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THE LAST CRYSTAL: Behind the Scenes
The Last Crystal Trilogy is complete at last. In the next few posts, I will be reflecting on the process of writing the Trilogy, beginning with The Last Crystal because I wrote it first. I had no idea I was going to write a trilogy. It started with an idea that swam around in my head for years before
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Writing as Conversation
I have been really fortunate to have some wonderful experiences with people who are interested in The Last Crystal Trilogy. Meeting people is rewarding–especially the kids. People who’ve read my books have been encouraging. I’ve had some great reviews, too–not all of them from family, either! At the same time, I am keenly aware that The
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The Making of an Egyptologist?
My granddaughter wants to be an Egyptologist. At fourteen, she has been teaching herself to read hieroglyphics, using the classic, Hieroglyphics for Beginners, by E. A. Wallis Budge. This all began in third grade when a teacher introduced her to myths from various cultures. She was intrigued by Egyptian mythology. Intrigue turned to the desire
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Mist, Children, Poetry and Times Past
Last week I was in a beautiful old farmhouse on the Choptank River where I focused entirely on writing. The first few days were rainy. The river ran high. I loved the wet mornings, watching the mist rise from the river. Carl Sandburg talks about how mist moving across the valley carries everything with
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Every Fall
It’s that unmistakable time of year when school has started. After a miserably hot, humid summer in Baltimore, we suddenly had a few crisp days in late August. Now that September is over, leaves are turning. Mornings have that cool, approaching autumn feel to them. I love this time of year. I remember my Grandma
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“You Can’t Do That!” More about Death of Characters
The Beautiful Hills, Chapter 27 of The Black Alabaster Box is a chapter my granddaughter insisted on. She’d been my junior editor all along, listening to various iterations and offering suggestions. Sometimes I followed her suggestions faithfully. Other times I had to follow my own light. This was especially true when it came to death
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