Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

HUMMUS AND HOMICIDE NOVEMBER 29 When Lucy Berberian quits her Philadelphia law firm and heads home to Ocean Crest, she knows what she’s getting—the scent of funnel cake, the sight of the wooden roller coaster, and the tastes of her family’s Mediterranean restaurant. But murder wasn’t on the menu . . .     Things are slow in the off-season in this Jersey Shore town, but Lucy doesn’t mind. She doesn’t even mind waitressing at the Kebab Kitchen. Her parents have put in a new hummus bar, with every flavor from lemon to roasted red pepper. It’s fun to see their calico cat again, and to catch up with her old BFF, who’s married to a cop now. She could do without Heather Banks, though. The Gucci-toting ex-cheerleader is still as nasty as she was back in high school . . . and unfortunately, she’s just taken over as the local health inspector. Just minutes after eating at the Kebab Kitchen—where she’s tallied up a whole list of bogus violations—she falls down dead in the street. Word o...

  Title: Towers Falling Author: Jewel Parker Rhodes Publisher: Little, Brown & Co., 2016. 228 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Summary:   When her fifth-grade teacher hints that a series of lessons about home and community will culminate with one big answer about two tall towers once visible outside their classroom window, Deja can't help but feel confused. She sets off on a journey of discovery, with new friends Ben and Sabeen by her side. But just as she gets closer to answering big questions about who she is, what America means, and how communities can grow (and heal), she uncovers new questions, too. Like, why does Pop get so angry when she brings up anything about the towers? My Review:  This deceptively simple book has some elements that are too predictable--any adult will know from the beginning what the trouble is with Deja's Pop, for example--but it does do what the author sets out to do: presents the story of 9-11 in a way that will be accessible ...

Fiction in 50 is a regular feature in the last week of every month and I invite any interested composers of mini-narrative to join in! What is #Fi50? In the words of founder Bruce Gargoyle, "Fiction in 50: think of it as the anti-NaNoWriMo experience!" Pack a beginning, middle and end of story into 50 words or less (bonus points for hitting exactly 50 words). Then add a link to your post in the comments below. Check out some of the other offerings, and join the fun! You can post any time during the week, or the whole month--prompts are available on the Fi50 page through the end of the year. I will be adding more for 2018 soon, so please make some suggestions to help me out!  The November prompt is The Worst that Could Happen I took the controls with a giant grin. Finally allowed to solo!  I did all the rituals the old flyers insisted on with my tongue in my cheek: kissed the ground, all that. I had this. What could go wrong?  I hit the power button and w...

It's the last Friday of the month, and that means time for FlashBack Friday! It's every blogger's chance to take a little break and re-run a post that you really like, or wish had gotten more attention. Join in! Just add the logo, and jump over to Jemima Pett's post where she's managing the hop and add your link in the comments. Then visit the other participants to see what else you might have missed! I found this food-related flash fiction to share in honor of Thanksgiving. I might have used it before, but I still like it. The narrator does find in the end he has a lot to be grateful for. What’s for Dinner? Mom’s acting weird.  Well, that’s kind of normal, if you follow me, because she’s always weird, but usually she’s weird like wearing strange clothes and working all night on one of those bizarre sculptures she makes.  I won’t ever tell her this, but I don’t like them.  They have too many jagged edges.  They’ll tear holes in you if you get too close.  I somet...

For those of us in the US, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. In spite of everything that's happening in our country, there's a lot to be thankful for. Maybe it's mostly worries on the national scale, but there is plenty of room for gratitude on the personal front. I like Thanksgiving. What's not to like about a holiday that focuses on food and people you love, with no religious issues to get between you and the pie? We should all be able to get behind the idea of showing a little gratitude for the good things we have. Here are a few things I'm grateful for. A few years out of date. We are overdue for a family portrait. I'm especially grateful for my husband, who is my co-conspirator in travel to beautiful places. Plus: he supports my crazy writing habit. Speaking of that writing thing, I'm really rather grateful to have been able to indulge my desire to write, and to have my books out there, available to readers. And how about feasts of good things, and the health ...

  Title: One Crazy Summer Author: Rita Williams-Garcia Publisher: Amistad, 2010. 217 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Summary: In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp. In a humorous and breakout book by Williams-Garcia, the Penderwicks meet the Black Panthers.   My Review:   Before I start my review, I'm going to share the list of awards this book has received:  Newbery Honor (2011), Scott O'Dell Award (2011) , Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award Nominee (2012) , Coretta Scott King Award for Author (2011) , Publishers Weekly's Best Children's Books of the Year for Fiction (2010) ...

This week's Wendig Challenge was to use your smartphone's predictive text feature and, starting from "Once upon a time," pick words until you had a story, or at least an opening line. My own efforts were pretty boring, but follow the link and see what some people came up with. Since I didn't like what I got, I picked one to use to start my story. I stole the line, "Once upon a time, I could change time," and got something from someone else mixed in, which gave me a story to write. I even hit 1000 words spot on. And maybe I have another flash-fiction anthology to put together sometime: the end of the world. I think I've destroyed it quite a few times on this blog. Time Was Once upon a time, when there was time, I could change time. I could speed it up or slow it down, even stop it altogether for…a time. 

The only thing I could not do was the one thing I wanted to do. I could not turn time back. But I had to.

It’s not that time is a river, the way th...