“Matlock has a gift for telling what she calls ‘the secret lives of ordinary people.’”
~Detroit Free Press



Latest Posts


  • Further lessons in Girl Camping

    Every time I go camping (camping being a rather wide term, mine with every convenience to be had in towing my modern rolling home), I learn new lessons. When I look back, the main lesson I learned from the start of my girl camping adventures and the major lesson I relearn each trip is that…

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  • Rules For Writing the Novel, and other bits of nonsense

    “There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” ~W. Somerset Maugham I mentioned here a few weeks ago the classic book of writing instruction The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. In the face of everyone in the modern world who gets their writing rules online with…

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  • Of Rain and Words

    This really happened today, and I find I must tell of it. As I drove out of my driveway, on my way to pick up a friend and take her to her doctor’s appointment, wind gusts tumbled leaves and large white magnolia blossom petals across the ground. Heavy clouds made it like evening and rumbled…

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  • Ta-Da! Open Bookshelf!

    Ta-Da! Open Bookshelf!

    Many thanks to those of you who replied by comment and email with suggestions to remedy the door stuck on one of my bookshelves. The suggestions were all along the lines to remove the books on the shelf above, which was drooping just a bit, and to use some sort of soap or oil on…

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  • In Need of Help With a Bookshelf Dilemma

    I’m following up on Brenda’s excellent suggestion that I ask for help with the stuck glass door on one of my bookshelves. The oak shelf above has bowed downward just enough to prevent the door from being opened on the shelf containing my collection of Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books.…

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  • Book Recommendations and A Small Miracle

    Book Recommendations and A Small Miracle

    I’ll start with the miracle. The forty-seven-year-old Christmas cactus has popped out two more blooms here in spring! Yes, you read that right. 47 years. Actually the plant is a bit older than that, because it was fair-sized when given to me forty-seven years ago this May by my husband’s Granny. We had journeyed to…

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Matlock writes about generous people striving to live and love well. She does it beautifully.
~ Contra Costa Times