“A book has no unwanted calories and you don’t have to worry about sizes as long as the subject matter appeals to the recipient.” ~Sue Grafton Is there a reader on your holiday gift list? T...
https://www.laferle.com/2023/11/writing-home-my-annual-shameless-plug/
Excerpted from my book of published columns, Writing Home, this essay was first published in Chicken Soup for the Soul (Healthy Living Series) and reprinted in Catholic Digest, April 2007. It wa...
At commencement you wear your square-shaped mortarboards. My hope is that from time to time you will let your minds be bold, and wear sombreros.” ~Paul Freund Like most moms, I spent years lect...
—Titled “The Art of Midlife Gardening,” this essay was originally published in Victoria magazine. Last spring, members of our local Master Gardener Society invited me to speak at one of the...
“Kindness, kindness, kindness. I want to make a New Year’s prayer, not a resolution. I’m praying for courage.” ~Susan Sontag Here’s to 2022! Let’s make it The Year of Compassion and ...
“The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivity, safety, and satisfaction. A person cooking is a person giving: Even the simplest food is ...
https://www.laferle.com/2019/03/weekend-column-where-everybody-knew-your-name/
A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard.” ~Sloan Wilson Note: This essay was publ...
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” — Ray Bradbury “Yes, summer was rituals, each with its natural time and place,” Ray Bradbury reminds us in Dandelion Wine...
My eyes like old glass windows, dusted with lost days, are ready to hold the new light.” — Margo LaGattuta, from “Pretending to Be a Barn” I found the e-mail from another writer-friend ea...