Dog-sitting and old haunts Recent Reads Jul 18, 2025 The Neptune Gate at Milwaukee’s Villa Terrace A very dear friend asked me to dog-sit while she helped her daughter move to a new city post-graduation. Archie is an intelligent poodle/Australian shepherd mix with one blue eye and one brown, and he goes into raptures wheneverContinue reading “The Bicycle Messenger on Location”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Welcome The Stranger
Which of the corporal works of mercy most attracts you? Recent Reads Jul 05, 2025 Early in The Bicycle Messenger, Mary Ellen and Charles Hawley learn of the existence of a young relative in need of a home. Seven-year-old Steven has just lost his father to cancer; and according to the silk-stocking attorney who serves asContinue reading “Welcome The Stranger”
Righteous Among the Nations
A real-life hero appears in The Bicycle Messenger Recent Reads Jun 20, 2025 Tadeusz Pankiewicz (photo: Wikipedia Commons) The Nazis established the Kraków ghetto in Poland in the district of Podgórze in March of 1941, initially cramming some 15,000 people into an area meant to house about 3,000. The previous residents of the district were evicted and givenContinue reading “Righteous Among the Nations”
It’s Almost Here!
On the long wait Recent Reads Jun 06, 2025 My debut novel, The Bicycle Messenger, releases at the beginning of August! You can preorder the book here to read the first chapter. In the meantime, take another look at this gorgeous cover art designed by the talented Roseanna White: The book crosses decades and continents. In the 1970s, CharlesContinue reading “It’s Almost Here!”
Is it Nostalgia?
On novel-writing and obedience. Recent Reads Feb 20, 2025 Over the past month, I’ve worked on the line edits for my novel, The Bicycle Messenger, which releases in August. The book’s action spans more than seventy years, and parts of it were written in different seasons of my life, so I’m especially thankful that God inContinue reading “Is it Nostalgia?”
Recent Reads -January 2025
In which I take Holly Ordway’s Advice Last November, at the Well-Read Mom annual conference here in Milwaukee, Tolkien scholar and Word on Fire author Holly Ordway spoke to us on “How to be Adventurous, Wise, and Charitable as a Reader.” Among Dr. Ordway’s suggestions was to sample various genres beyond the ones we usuallyContinue reading “Recent Reads -January 2025”
Recent Reads – December 2024
Shop Local Fire Conditions by Thomas C. Malin (WWA Press, 2024) I love to celebrate the work of small presses. This fall, the Wisconsin Writers Association has released Fire Conditions, a coming-of-age novel by Thomas C. Malin. One of the things I admire most about this book is its strong sense of place. Set inContinue reading “Recent Reads – December 2024”
Recent Reads – September 2024
A Look Back at Summer Child of my Heart by Alice McDermott (2002, Farrar, Straus and Giroux) A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr (1980, reissued by New York Review of Books in 2000) Word on Fire’s Women of the Catholic Imagination: Twelve Inspired Novelists You Should Know is the gift that keepsContinue reading “Recent Reads – September 2024”
Recent Reads – July 2024
In Search of Community Haley Stewart, Ed. Women of the Catholic Imagination: Twelve Inspired Novelists You Should Know (Word on Fire, 2024) An as-yet unpublished novel of mine once found its way into the hands of a literary agent for consideration. It’s about a young woman in a high-powered job who is unfaithful to herContinue reading “Recent Reads – July 2024”
Recent Reads – May 2024
Revisiting Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy I have a distinct image of myself newly graduated from college, lying in the top bunk in a friend’s house in Sweden and finishing Jude the Obscure in the long, otherworldly June daylight. Thirty-six years have passed since then; my husband and I have raised three children toContinue reading “Recent Reads – May 2024”
Joan Elizabeth Bauer 