Answering the Question: Do I Matter?

by | Mar 2, 2026 | Original Writing

The job hunt continues, and after two months, I find myself searching, not just for the next paycheck or the stability of health insurance for my family once severance runs out, but also for clarity on how I still matter. We all want to do work that leaves a mark....

Farewell to the Golden Cow

by | Jan 25, 2026 | Original Writing

Today marks the unexpected closing of the Newport Creamery (“stop at the sign of the Golden Cow”) here in our town. For those of you not from the area, think mediocre ice cream and burgers cooked on a giant griddle and served by high school students, like...

Awake

by | Jan 19, 2026 | Original Writing

I find myself with a lot more free time to write on my hands as I seek out the next step of my professional communications and marketing journey. With that in mind, I plan to share bits and pieces of new, original writing here.    I’m in bed early, never this...

Writing My Way Through Imposter Syndrome

by | Jan 16, 2026 | The Writing Process

After a quarter century in one technology company as a writer, speaker, and marketer, I sometimes feel less like an expert and more like someone very convincingly impersonating an expert. I’ve spent years working with a great team to turn chaos, half-baked product...

RIP to a Damn Fine Writer and Editor

by | Aug 5, 2025 | Authors, Media

It’s weird when someone you’ve known seemingly for ages, spoken with moderately regularly, and run into face-to-face from time to time is gone. Yesterday, my colleagues and I received word that Jim Fullilove, the longtime managing editor of Marine Electronics Journal,...

Tools of the Trade

by | Jan 15, 2023 | Best Practices, Events, The Writing Process

As the publishing industry has expanded through innovative platforms and an explosion of indie authors, so too has the technology to support them. Whether you’re drafting a manuscript, self-publishing your work, designing a marketing plan, leveraging social media for...

The Empty Spaces Between the Other Times

by | Jan 15, 2022 | Original Writing

I’ve been thinking a lot about time ever since I received the call at 5:55 PM on a Wednesday. How much time it took me to put on my jacket. To sprint from my office, down the hall, and out to my car. To drive across the bridge to Jamestown to be with my stepmother and...

Inspired or Not

by | Oct 24, 2021 | The Writing Process

Quote of the Day: “If you’re only going to write when you’re inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you will never be a novelist — because you’re going to have to make your word count today, and those words aren’t going to wait for you, whether you’re inspired...

A Writer Who Respected Her Audience and Her Characters

by | Mar 26, 2021 | Authors

RIP Beverly Cleary. I adored her books as a child and now, as a parent, I’ve loved them all over again as I read them to my daughter and then watched her become a huge fan of reading as a result. I think she can recite Ramona the Pest word for word by now. I also love...

Seeing is Believing: Map and Manuscript

by | Oct 15, 2020 | The Writing Process

While on my writing retreat in western Massachusetts, I realized I had no idea where I was going. Well, not me but my characters. I was 80,000 words into my manuscript, characters were leaving the city in which much of the action takes place, and I couldn’t recall...