Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

  It's the first Wednesday of the month again already, and time for my IWSG post!    Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds (and come on, we're all insecure in some way)! Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writers - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Be sure to link to the IWSG page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! Otherwise, whe...

I'm posting this morning with the Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop. The hop is sponsored by  Greg Pattridge of Always in the Middle . Check out Greg's blog for a list of additional middle grade reviews.    After winning a copy of Kelly's  The Blue Hearts  in a giveaway, I have gone down the rabbit hole, reading my way through her opus. This one comes before the events in  The Secret Language of Birds , and there is some character overlap.   Title : Song for a Whale Author : Lynne Kelly Publication Info: Delacourt, 2019. 320 pages. Source : Library Publisher's Blurb:  From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she’s the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she’s not very smart. If you’ve ever felt like no one was listening to you, then you know how hard that can be. When she learns about Blue 55, a real whale who is unable to speak to other whales, Ir...

Ha! it took me until well into Saturday, but I have for you an all-new story, the 20th installment in the adventures of Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer.         Xavier Xanthum and the Unsettling Settlers   “I don’t think this was a good idea.” Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer, found the words uttered by his ship’s AI to be both true and pointless.   The spears aimed at him from all sides were, alas, all too pointed. Xavier attempted a tried and true approach. “I come in peace.”   “And you’ll go in pieces.” The response came so quickly that Xavier knew it hadn’t gone through the translator box.   “What the hell? You speak Galactic Common? Here?” Oops. Not tactful.   Larry, the AI, gave him a local history lesson. “New Home was settled about ten generations back by a group opposed to all tech. They spent the first two or three hundred standard years eliminating any tech that came with them, even most machinery.” ...

I'm continuing to delve into the archives and pull out photos, mostly my husband's, from our trip to Patagonia in 2020. It's good to let his art out into the world a little, and it doesn't hurt too much.  We spent about 10 days in El Chalten, hiking the hills around Mt. Fitzroy. In past posts I've shared some shots of the amazing sunrise we photographed one morning, but there was so much more. I'll pick out some of the best to post over the next two or three weeks.  Today, we'll see some photos of Chorillo del Salto and a hike to Laguna Torre, with views of Cerro Torre and Fitzroy.  The waterfall. The valley of the Rio de las Vueltas, a classic braided glacial river (thus the color). Another day we did a hike to Laguna Torre. With Dave and his brother, we always started early, and were rewarded with great light and no crowds. That's me on the right.   Dave was a great one for making panoramas, stitched from high-quality individual shots. Reflecting pool....

Thanks to the author and publisher for the chance to review this book, which I won in a give-away (I also thank the blogger who ran the giveaway, but, alas, I'm not sure who it was, and won't guess). I'm posting this morning with the Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop. The hop is sponsored by  Greg Pattridge of Always in the Middle . Check out Greg's blog for a list of additional middle grade reviews.          Title: One Fine Voice Author: Rebecca Langston-George Publishing Info: Historium Press, 2026, 128 pages Source: won a paperback in a giveaway Publisher's Blurb (via Goodreads): All her life, Esther Hopkins has been told she has a mighty fine voice. Still, she can't believe her luck when just days after moving to town, she's invited to sing a solo at the 1923 Independence Day picnic. But the group sponsoring the picnic is not the benevolent fraternal order they claim to be. Worse, they've recruited her father, the town's freshly ...

  A couple of weeks ago I discovered I'd never completed sharing photos from our 2020 trip to Patagonia. I'm focusing on my late husband's photos from the trip, both because he was a better photographer than I'll ever be, and so that those photos don't just sit there on my hard drive, never seen. Last week we looked at the Perito Moreno glacier from the water. How about a look from the land? (Note: in 2026, just six years later, the glacier has changed from advancing to retreating, and is now something like half a mile from the viewpoint).   We'll end with a couple of videos of the glacier calving--some huge chunks came off, about 7 or 8 minutes apart.   In a pan near the end of this one you can see the huge, clean, deep blue space where the piece fell off in the previous video.   I hope you enjoyed this little visit to a now-endangered glacier (endangered, like all the rest, due to climate change).   I'll find some mountain photos for next week!   ☕ Buy me...

Well, I meant to post on Saturday. And I mean to get a blog post ready for Marvelous Middle Grade Monday. I miss all those deadlines because I just got tired, and distracted. You can enjoy this audiobook review of Amy Liptrot's memoir whenever I manage to finish it.     Title: The Outrun: A Memoir Author:  Amy Liptrot; read by Tracy Wiles Publication Info: Canongate Books, 2023, 7 hours. Original hardback 2016 by Canongate, 280 pages. Publisher's Blurb:   At the age of thirty, Amy Liptrot finds herself washed up back home on Orkney. Standing unstable on the island, she tries to come to terms with the addiction that has swallowed the last decade of her life. As she spends her mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, her days tracking Orkney's wildlife, and her nights searching the sky for the Merry Dancers, Amy discovers how the wild can restore life and renew hope.   My Review: This one didn't turn out to be quite what I expected. The blurb mad...