Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

It's the first Wednesday of another month, and time to bare our insecurities!       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! 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 writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to commen...

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.    A couple of weeks ago I reviewed  Okay For Now , then realized that it's the 2nd (or 3rd) in a loosely connected series starting with  The Wednesday Wars . Today  I'm reviewing the other two books : The Wednesday Wars  and  Just Like That.   I recommend reading them in order, and I recommend not reading my review of  Just Like That  until after you've finished reading the first book (don't worry--it won't take you long, because it's surprisingly hard to put down).   Title : The Wednesday Wars Author : Gary D. Schmidt Publication Info : Clarion Books, 2007. 264 pages.  Source : Library Publisher's Blurb (Goodreads): In this Newbery Honor-winning novel, Gary D. Schmidt offers an unforgettable antihero. ...

I'm pretty much done with the photos from my May road trip/backpacking expedition to New Mexico. I'll finish up today with a few final shots from the drive home, most of them showing weather in action, because that's mostly what I stopped to take pictures of (and I did encounter some weather), and move on to summer hikes soon. There were a lot of clouds and rain shafts on my way across Arizona and up into the Bears Ears National Monument.  Climbing the Moki Dugway gave me some great views of both the weather and an amazing landscape (which if we don't do a lot of collective screaming my be destroyed forever since the Monument has been shrunken to exclude it).     A couple of days later, after my hikes at Bears Ears and Natural Bridges , I shot these photos in east central Oregon.   Those were rather large and fast-building thunderstorm clouds. The forecast suggested that the storm would be more to the west, so I chose to stay more east, taking US 395 to John Day. It...

This week's book review comes from my "outdoor adventure and environmental studies" pile.    Title : North to the Future: An Offline Adventure Through the Changing Wilds of Alaska Au thor: Ben Weissenbach. Read by the author Publication info : Grand Central Publishing, 2025. 11 hours. Hardcover same, 320 pages. Source : Library Publisher's Blurb (via Goodreads) : At the age of twenty-one, college student Ben Weissenbach set out into the Alaskan wilderness armed with little more than inspiration from his literary heroes and a growing interest in climate change. What meets him there is a landscape both stark and awe-inspiring—a part of the world seen by few outside a small contingent of scientists with big personalities. There’s Roman Dial, the larger-than-life field scientist who leads him on a five week journey into the Alaskan backcountry. There’s Kenji Yoshikawa, the isolated researcher who leaves Ben alone for eleven days to care for his remote cabin, whe...

Natural Bridges is located in SE Utah, and is (or has been) surrounded by the Bears Ears National Monument, which it predates by a good century--Natural Bridges National Monument was created by Teddy Roosevelt in 1908 (Bears Ears was protected in 2016). The heart of the monument is the White Canyon, where there are three significant bridges-- Kachina , Owachomo , and Sipapu.  My project on the May morning I was there was to hike to the Sipapu bridge, a 1.5-mile drop into the canyon and back out. What I ended up doing was a 5.75 mile loop from Sipapu to Owachomo and back up over the mesa to my car. Sun's up--time to get out of camp! 20 minutes later at the Sipapu Bridge overlook. Spot the bridge down there? You can't actually see through it from this angle. Time for another bit of pedantry. In case you are wondering, there's a reason these are called bridges, not arches. And that reason is totally tied up to their location. If you've visited Arches NP, you know y...

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 : Okay for Now Author : Gary D. Schmidt Publication Info : Clarion Books, 2011, 360 pages. Source : Library Publisher's Blurb (via Goodreads): As a fourteen-year-old who just moved to a new town, with no friends and a louse for an older brother, Doug Swieteck has all the stats stacked against him. So begins a coming-of-age masterwork full of equal parts comedy and tragedy from Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt. As Doug struggles to be more than the “skinny thug” that his teachers and the police think him to be, he finds an unlikely ally in Lil Spicer—a fiery young lady who “smelled like daisies would smell if they were growing in a big field under a clearing sky after a rain.” In Lil, Doug finds the strength to endure an abusive father...

Well, if this isn't a bit bittersweet, revisiting Bears Ears just as the size of the monument--and of Grand Staircase-Escalante , another favorite stomping ground--is being slashed by an entity I shall not name. If you think these photos--or the others from my trips to these areas--show something special, maybe lift up your voice and let Congress know we aren't happy about this latest move. I try not to get political on this blog, but sometimes silence is not acceptable. Shrinking this monument and others in Utah is unacceptable.  Two years ago I spent a week backpacking Grand Gulch in the Bears Ears (see link above). This time I was in transit, and only had a few hours in the Monument. I made the most of them. Stop 1: Mule Canyon/House on Fire It was almost 4 p.m. when I headed up Mule Canyon on the 1 mile walk to House on Fire. The weather wasn't wholly cooperative. I almost turned back when it started to rain, but such desert showers don't usually last, and it didn...