Kathy Boles-Turner

Checking for Connection While Writing and Wanting

“You write the loveliest letters!” That’s one of the most heartfelt compliments I ever received from an older woman in my life. Her son and I were planning to get married, he was in boot camp and I was hundreds of miles away working two jobs to save up for the wedding. I figured she […]

by Kathy Boles-Turner

One Day At A Time, One Decision, One Step, No Room For Regret

Regret just wastes time and energy best spent on learning. I’ve made more than a few mistakes, but the best thing I’ve done so far is spend time seeking out information. That whole try try again thing in and of itself is a very rich learning experience. Most important lesson learned as of yet: I […]

by Kathy Boles-Turner

You Could Just Tell Me, Really

Listening to so many podcasts featuring writers of every known genre that have traditionally published in the past fifty years, one would think it possible to encounter a writer willing to share the real horrors of querying agents. Oh sure, they all give some hint that it was time consuming or tough. Except for those […]

by Kathy Boles-Turner

First Week of July Writing, Reading, Joining, Quitting

Featured image by Tonya Boles

by Kathy Boles-Turner

The Witch Elm by Tana French and Do You Really Know Yourself At All

Truth is there’s darkness lurking. The unmeasured capacity for pain and shame, selflessness, self-preservation, and great voids of unanswerable questions. Or, answers that might be better left alone. People are mysteries, even unto themselves. I’ve always marveled over that old phrase usually employed with a sheepish or dumbfounded tone: “I lost my temper”. Well, maybe the more truthful […]

by Kathy Boles-Turner

Good Cardio and Intuition

Yesterday as I went out to my car thunder rumbled in the distance. Just after steering onto the main road, about fifty yards or so away, what I saw coming toward me didn’t look like a wall of rain but a shiny curtain of silver pebbles falling from an almost sunny sky. Falling in such […]

by Kathy Boles-Turner

Reading In My Future Haven

Imagine a room with pine plank floors and inset shelves painted a lush white, nine feet tall, three feet wide, six inches apart, running the length of a room on either side of a broad picture window. On each shelf there are of course well used books from every era of modern literature, spines of […]

by Kathy Boles-Turner

A Week of Reading Binges & Good Customer Service

Yesterday I met a man who by way of introduction told me he was born in 1938 and his first job paid fifty cents per day. In customer service this sort of thing happens frequently. Some folks just want to stir up conversation, state their opinion or ask someone else’s to measure the contrast. Sometimes […]

by Kathy Boles-Turner

Reading Everything: Butler, Bradbury, Didion

The air has been sweet, breezy, and clear, the mornings cool and the afternoons bright but not the hot wet blanket that can happen this time of year in this part of the country. We’re in June’s sweet spot right now, a pleasurable time that can’t really be predicted from year to year but it […]

by Kathy Boles-Turner

Reading Octavia Butler

Like many good things, I came to Octavia Butler’s writing late in life. Two weeks ago as a matter of fact. Two glorious weeks ago. Of course, I had heard about her work, heard her mentioned by feminist writers and scifi aficionados. Taking so long to seek out her books can only be attributed to […]