With many years of doggy love etched into my being, I realized that God created this intense, short-lived life of pure, unreserved love to teach us humans a valuable lesson. The magnificent brilliance of love in action leaves open the question of who trains who.

We love to read about food, even when it’s not the main subject of a book. Food is emotionally tied to love, grief, and sensory escapism. Do you like reading mysteries? Think about some of the most famous escapades that have used food as a murder weapon!

When an ignorant president repeatedly starts or threatens war, based on might and lies, when an unpopular president muses about cancelling the midterm elections, and demonstrates again his intent to meddle in them, that is where we are. As to why he is unpopular, I present my political poem.

And then that night, it began snowing, and snowing, and snowing, and SNOWING.  The wind sounded like a train roaring through, as though the gods were sending a message.

Snow blew thickly, horizontally across the landscape, truly adding depth to the idea of “white out.” With 497,000 people without power, businesses and schools closed for several days, it was not your average snow storm.

“I started thinking about water in our lives, even if it’s not specifically a natural landscape feature. Rain, mist, dew…all of these forms of water that are transitory. They are still a part of our natural world, but we can't point to them because they come and go in our lives. My question to you today, especially thinking about how our bodies are made of water, is how does our bodily presence interact with these transitory forms of water?”

How did mermaid myths emerge? Sailors squinting towards the horizon have long reported a variety of unidentifiable sea creatures, many of whom they’ve dubbed mermaids.

I found a recent article by Ted Hayes in the Westport Shorelines online edition about Melinda Green swimming in Sakonnet Harbor among the ice flows!  “Amazing!” I thought to myself, so I googled Mermazons and I found a previous article by Ted about the Mermazons. To my surprise, there was a picture of Midori Evans with her fellow Mermazons. The group formed as a result of the pandemic and they try to swim as often as possible.  So here is my tribute poem to Midori and her fellow Mermazons!

I find the links between poetry and smithcraft deeply inspiring. Brigid not only tends the fires of inspiration for our poems, but she keeps a forge where physical weapons can be created and strengthened. We’ve heard the old adage “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

Maps inspire writing, and vice versa. Many writers create an outline before they jump into writing a story. An outline is a written or mental map of where the story might take its readers. Historical maps can be viewed as an outline of where real stories took place in our community.

On the heels of the Moby-Dick Marathon reading, our July 2025 Westport Writers Group’s Waterscapes reading at the RJD looks much different.

The poet’s work is a work of “art” in itself. Seeing Architectural #1 in person gives me my first spark…that the “house” is really one façade with a back and a front. And each façade is quite different: the “front” being an example of classical architecture and the backside harder to pin down, but with geometric symbols on the wall and a strange “space” inside, minimally delineated.

Living in New England offers us a unique opportunity to experience extremes on the scale of duality. Through the changing of seasons, freezing cold hands in winter are contrasted by a sunburned face in summer—yet the physical feeling is indeed quite similar. We still have the same sun, ocean, sand dunes, and woods to walk in year-round.

“I love being both a writer and a photographer. I find myself able to easily shift from one to another and use my skills in both to influence my work. For people used to working in only one medium, it can be revolutionary to explore a viewpoint and method of creating that is completely different.”

As I drive through Milton, where we moved when I was six and my older brother was learning to drive, I listen to Steve describe how the system kept his and my birth parents and the facts of our adoptions secret from us. Steve seemed pissed. I was just oblivious.

Lauren begins her writing process with quiet moments, waiting for the muse to spark. Her mind travels, wanders, and she patiently waits. Words flow on Lauren’s various projects as she writes first thing every morning. After the spark, time passes, which allows ideas to simmer until there is a click. Following her intuition, the pieces fall into place and she begins book writing in earnest. Some novels could be complete in a few months. Other times, questions may arise and she sets the project aside, returning once those questions answer themselves and word flow begins again.

A writer’s dream often includes the big book deal or the accolades from impressive foundations and institutions. I think deep down we all want that for our art. But it’s my hope and ambition to make my friends, the artists of the Southcoast, feel that same sense of pride and accomplishment right here at home.

If you are like most of us, the holidays – no matter how you may feel about them: good, bad, indifferent, annoyed – are disruptive to routines. Kids out of school, strange travel plans, loads of things we’re supposed to buy, or make, or events to attend.

In the late 1980s, I lived in Jefferson, NH, where I worked with an arsonist at the local family restaurant. Now before you get the wrong idea, I didn’t know he was an arsonist at the time. Heck, I sometimes wonder if even he knew, as he was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. The actual infernal mastermind of the fires was the owner of one of two gas stations in town, who could often be seen sweeping microscopic pieces of fluff from the tarmac in front of his convenience store while wearing a pair of vintage Mickey Mouse ears.

The South Coast Almanac’s Walking Book Club walked their first anthology on Westport’s Gooseberry Island. Along the way we learned how about how a group of surfers successfully changed a local landmark’s name.