Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Apologies for a lack of polish and all the usual info about the amazing WEP (Write, Edit, Publish) Challenge! And I’m on the road again, so I’ll be commenting as I can on the everyone else’s posts. If you are a participant, I’ll be around to see you before June :).  If you aren’t, consider joining in! I originally mixed this up with last April’s challenge (the road less traveled), which made me want to do a photo essay. Even though that’s not what the challenge is, I could see the jewel box working for some of my photos, so here goes... New Zealand itself is a jewel box of fantastic scenery, so I had to narrow this down. I decide to share photos of... some beautiful rocks I’ve found here! We have spent most of our time in the mountains, but we did get to the beach a few times. When we did, I wanted to pick up and take home every stone and shell I saw. Mostly I took photos and put them back. Here are some of the “jewels” I left behind. “I left my heart in New Zealand”  And a few shells,

My husband and I are  spending several months traveling and tramping in New Zealand. We arrived on the South Island Dec. 28, 2018, and spent January hiking like crazy with our 21-year-old son, Dave’s brother, and his wife. February and March we spend largely based in Christchurch with our son, and now we are on the road for a final 3 weeks to visit the North Island. But I’m still catching up with January. This was the last of our four major multi-night tramps in that month. Gillespie Pass/Siberia Valley semi-loop This was a rugged tramp with some seriously steep ups and downs, and some poor weather in the forecast. My sister-in-law wisely decided to sit this one out, but the other four of us headed out boldly. The trip began with a five-minute jet-boat ride across and up the river, thus saving us either a potentially dangerous ford or an extra 2 or 3 miles of hiking (from the nearest bridge). It was interesting to see how they handled the jet boats. The river is too erratic to allow fo

Another beautiful blue cover! Title: Wishtree Author: Katherine Applegate Publication Info: Feiwel And Friends, 2017. 254 pages (hardback) Source: Library digital resources Publisher’s Blurb: Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood "wishtree"—people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red's branches. Along with her crow friend Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red's hollows, this "wishtree" watches over the neighborhood. You might say Red has seen it all. Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red's experiences as a wishtree are more important than ever.   My Review:  Wishtree was the selection for the March book of the month for the Great Middle Grade Reads group on Goodreads. I was a little hesitant as I started it, both because a few people who’d gotten an earlier start on it didn’t entirely like it, and because of the timing. It’s a book that deals, in part, with anti-Muslim ha

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 the IWSG page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! If it links to Google+, be sure your blog is listed there. Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.  This month's fantastic co-hosts:    J

Title: Almost Paradise Author: Corabel Shofner. Read by Eileen Stevens Publication Info: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017. 288 pages in hardback. Audio edition by Blackstone Audio, 2017. Source: Library digital resources Publisher’s Blurb:  Twelve-year-old Ruby Clyde Henderson’s life turns upside down the day her mother’s boyfriend holds up a convenience store, and her mother is wrongly imprisoned for assisting with the crime. Ruby and her pet pig, Bunny, find their way to her estranged Aunt Eleanor's home. Aunt Eleanor is a nun who lives on a peach orchard called Paradise, and had turned away from their family long ago. With a little patience, she and Ruby begin to get along―but Eleanor has secrets of her own, secrets that might mean more hard times for Ruby. Ruby believes that she's the only one who can find a way to help heal her loved ones, save her mother, and bring her family back together again. But being in a family means that everyone has to work together to support ea

My husband and I and our 21-year-old son are spending several months traveling and tramping in New Zealand. We arrived on the South Island Dec. 28, 2018, and spent January hiking like crazy with Dave’s brother and his wife, before sending them home and settling into a home base in Christchurch, allowing me a bit more time between adventures to get some blogging and writing done! I’m posting photo reports on our major tramping trips. This is the second half of the Rees-Dart loop. For the first part,  go here . Rees-Dart Track, Days 3-5 We left you last week with a late-afternoon arrival at the Dart Hut. It is a fairly new and comfortable hut, which was nice, because we were to spend two nights there (as most trampers do). The purpose: an all-day side-trip to Cascade Saddle, with views of the Dart Glacier, and over the mountain range to Mt. Aspiring and surrounding peaks. Knowing the hike would be long and hard, the senior members of our party got up at an ungodly hour in order to start

My big news for this week is that I really will have a draft of Death By Library  ready for beta-readers  within the next few days. I have two readers lined up (I hope you remember who you are!) but would love to have some more. Please contact me or leave a comment if you would like to read a draft form of the 4th book in the Pismawallops PTA mystery series. I will warn that this is definitely a working read; there is quite a bit of work to be done yet. I am sending it out sooner than I might ordinarily do largely because I’ll be on the road for the next two months, so unable to do much on it myself. If I were really organized, I’d have a blurb ready to entice you to want to beta-read. I’ve been too busy trying to get the draft done, though, so I’ll just have to say... JJ has a new job at the library, where things turn deadly when a local news gadfly goes a bit too far... Of course, her personal life is as chaotic as ever, as she prepares for Thanksgiving with her mother in her way, an

It’s #FictionIn50 time again!  Please consider sharing your own 50-word creations, and join the hop. 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). The rules for participation are simple : 1. Create a piece of fictional writing in 50 words or less, ideally using the prompt as title or theme or inspiration. That’s it!  But for those who wish to challenge themselves further, here’s an additional rule: 2. Post your piece of flash fiction on your blog or (for those poor blog-less souls) add it as a comment on the Ninja Librarian’s post for everyone to enjoy.   And for those thrill-seekers who really like to go the extra mile (ie: perfectionists): 3. Add the nifty l