Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Participating in the Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop  hosted by Greg Pattrige of Always in the Middle , with loads of reviews of Middle Grade fiction (books for roughly ages 8-12).   Title: The Language of Seabirds Author: Will Taylor Publication Info: Scholastic, 2022. 256 pages Source: Library Publisher's Blurb:  A sweet, tender middle-grade story of two boys finding first love with each other over a seaside summer. Jeremy is not excited about the prospect of spending the summer with his dad and his uncle in a seaside cabin in Oregon. It's the first summer after his parents' divorce, and he hasn't exactly been seeking alone time with his dad. He doesn't have a choice, though, so he goes... and on his first day takes a walk on the beach and finds himself intrigued by a boy his age running by. Eventually, he and Runner Boy (Evan) meet -- and what starts out as friendship blooms into something neither boy is expecting... and also something both bo

Followers of this space may have figured out that I've been in Africa for the last month. After a very full schedule of hiking, safaris, and a visit to Victoria Falls, I came back to the US in time for my son's wedding (a schedule that was undeniably a little fraught). Naturally I don't have the photos edited and I'm not quite ready to do a proper trip report, even of the first bit, but I thought I'd throw out a teaser with a few highlights. The trip had basically five parts. 1. Tanzanian Safari.  Petey Possum is ready for adventure!   Some things have to be seen to be believed. 2. Mt. Meru Climb (Tanzania) Are we really going up there? Yes, we did! 3. Mt. Kenya circumambulation (Kenya) Going around that. Weather. 4. Kenya Safari Animals large... ... and small 5. Victoria Falls Hope that this has caught your interest enough to keep you coming back! I'll be posting full trip reports (lots of photos!) as I get the photos edited. Watch the weekend posts over the ne

  It's the first Wednesday of the month--time for the IWSG post.       Why? The IWSG is here to share and encourage, to offer a place for authors to admit their insecurities and offer help and support to each other. How? The official IWSG posting day is the first Wednesday of every month. Hop around the list and see who has worries, triumphs, and news to share.  Every month we have an optional question to spark discussion.  Our motto:  Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.   The awesome co-hosts for the  March 6 posting of the IWSG are  Kristina Kelly,   Miffie Seideman,   Jean Davis,  and  Liza @ Middle Passages! Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.  Remember, the qu

While I'm off collecting exciting new photos to share, I'm also sharing some of my flash fiction from years gone by.   This piece is from 2014, and is short at 650 words. I think I wrote it mostly as a sort of homage to US 50 in Nevada, "the Loneliest Road in the America" (not true) and a route of which I'm oddly fond. Anchored at one end by the Sierra Nevada (if you don't take the obvious route and get on I80 at Fernley) and by Great Basin National Park at the other. What the Highway Wants LeAnn clutched the wheel of her ’78 Buick, and kept her eyes on the road. It had been a long drive from Ely, and traffic was growing thicker. US 50 wasn’t the Loneliest Road in America at this end, and there were on-coming cars every minute or two. She pulled off the road at Grimes Point, where the petroglyphs were, just outside Fallon. She knew it was the last convenient bathroom before Donner Pass.   LeAnn didn’t like to stop at Donner Pass. T

While I'm off collecting exciting new photos to share, I'm also sharing some of my flash fiction from years gone by.   Another story from 2016. The main character may have some tiny resemblance to me in certain respects. It's conceivable that there is also some resemblance here to actual events, though I have never cussed out a bear.  984 words. For Want of a Map “You said you knew the route. You said you didn’t need a map.” Rosa’s tone was deceptively calm, and Hal swallowed. After 27 years of marriage he knew when he was in trouble.   “I, ah, must have missed the junction. It can’t be far back, though.” He tried to picture it, but he’d been thinking about a problem at work, and had really no idea where the junction had been.   Rosa looked at her husband a moment, hands on hips, and let him squirm. Then she dropped her pack, opened the top pocket, and extracted a map. Unfolding it, she turned her back to the wind—and to her spouse. The effect w

Since I'm off gallivanting and not creating new content, it's time to call out another section of my back-list: the Ninja Librarian series. Skunk Corners. Where it all began, in a way. The Ninja Librarian wasn't the first book I wrote (far from it, actually, given I started writing at age 6), but it was the first I published. A series of essentially free-standing stories threaded together into a longer story, I wrote much of this book at the library, in the quiet stretches of the evening shift. I just worked that shift in those days, because with two small children at home it was the only time I was free. The Ninja Librarian is a wholly fictional character. But he does share some characteristics, and most of his looks, with Tom Goward, who was the Head Librarian at Daly City's Westlake Library in those days. And the initial spark for the book came from something he said.  Now you know. I wrote the original collection of tales over the course of several years, and two mo

While I'm off collecting exciting new photos to share, I'm also sharing some of my flash fiction from years gone by.  I chose this one from 2016 just for the last line, which in my mind saves it from being obvious and marks it as my work. 1029 words. Huntress “They’re back.” Artima looked up from the weapons she tended with the attention a woman lavishes on that which keeps her alive. “What?” Herbert of Callia always looked like he’d lost his last friend. His expression now suggested that he’d found that friend rotting behind the castle. “The spiders.” “I thought they killed all of those while you were still learning arms.” The little man shrugged. Herbert swore he had no dwarf blood, but he was small, hairy, and mean enough she figured that for a lie. “Looks like they didn’t get them all.” He was also her armsmaster, and Artima knew what he wanted. “You never taught me how to fight the spiders.” Herbert sighed. “I never thought you’d need to.