Elaine Soloway

Elaine Soloway’s Author Page

  • Joan Fontaine

    Rose Madeline Mula: If You Can’t Stand the Heat

    Rose Madeline Mula Writes: “It was with considerable trepidation, therefore, that I entered the kitchen of my hostess, the legendary actress, Joan Fontaine, one long-ago Thanksgiving morning, to offer my assistance. Acting was not Miss Fontaine’s only talent. Not by a long shot. She was also a hole-in-one golfer, a prize-winning fisherwoman, a hot air…

  • An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

    An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

    Rose Mula Writes: Some people never leave home without their American Express card; I never leave home without a camera. Digitized pictures of the twenty-five countries and forty-plus states of America that I’ve visited since my first tour of exotic New Hampshire constantly flash on my computer monitors and digital frames throughout my home, helping…

  • Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

    Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

    Julia Sneden Wrote: My mind’s eye can still see the face of the Children’s Librarian, although I have long since forgotten her name. We will be wise to continue to back up our knowledge of history and literature and art and science with hard copy. She kept up with my reading level, suggesting writers and…

  • high heels

    Julia Sneden Wrote: If The Shoe Fits … You Can Bet It’s Not Fashionable

    Julia Sneden Wrote: My mother was a mini Imelda Marcos. She kept upwards of 40 pairs of shoes well into her 80’s, and was crushed when she had to give up high heels following a heart attack at the age of 89. Her sole criterion in buying shoes was style, not comfort, and she was…

  • Vintage jewelry, Wikimedia Commons

    Joan L.Cannon Wrote: A Family Inheritance: More Than ‘Things’ … Emblems of Our Lives

    Joan Cannon wrote: As one advances in years, one accumulates possessions the way a caddis fly larva accumulates grit. The glue that makes us carry it all along with us is in a way self-secreted as well. However, it’s psychic rather than physical — emotional rather than material. Perhaps the most obvious example is a…

  • ways to grasp a pencil

    Julia Sneden Wrote: Old Dogs, New Tricks

    Julia Sneden wrote: At the age of 37, I started a new career as a kindergarten teacher. My first day on the job, the lead teacher, who was in her 70’s and scared me every bit as much as she scared the children, watched me writing a note. “You’ll have to change the way you…

  • Captain Charles E. Yeager

    Joan Cannon Writes: Finding the Right Excuse; Committing Words to Paper Because …

    Joan Cannon Writes: Think of the poets and novelists and playwrights whose words sink into the consciousness of thousands and even millions and remain there, as emblems, guides, beacons of hope or warnings of disasters, and the excuse (as if one is needed) presents itself. Maybe there’s information or a revelation for some unknown viewer…

  • stack of books

    Joan Cannon Asked: What is a Book Club? An Old-Fashioned Book Report? A Program Given By an Author? What Is the Accepted Practice?

    Joan L. Cannnon wrote: A year or so ago, I was invited to attend a tea given by the combined membership of all the book clubs in the town where I now live. A presentation was scheduled for the proprietor of the much-loved local independent book store cum gift shop. She is a legend in…

  • Celebrating a Decade of Words and Wonder; A Rolling Exhibition to the Heartland

    If you missed or couldn’t attend the National Book Festival this weekend or hadn’t watched it on C-Span2 (Booktv.org), there are sources for author’s interviews, a kids and teacher’s guide, and author’s podcasts. “Gateway to Knowledge” is expected to visit up to 60 sites in states across the Midwest and South over the next year.

  • Farewell to the Feckless Life

    For far too long, banks have encouraged abusive use of debit cards, and have pocketed the resulting punitive fees with, I’m sure, big, understanding smiles on their corporate faces. These days, more and more high schools are offering “life skills” classes that teach kids how to make a budget, handle a checking account, read a…

  • Pew Research Finds That Independents Oppose Party in Power … Again

    Uncharacteristically, independent voters, who typically are not highly engaged by midterm elections, are now more likely than Democrats to say they are giving a lot of thought to this one. And they are about as likely as Democrats to say they definitely will vote.

  • Women’s Health Research; Progress, Pitfalls, and Promise

    Even though slightly over half of the US population is female, apart from reproductive concerns, medical research historically has neglected the health needs of women. [The committee] finds that women’s health research has contributed to significant progress in addressing some conditions, while other conditions have seen only moderate progress or even little or no progress…

  • Celebrating Comprehensive Health Care: The Affordable Care Act’s Six-Month Anniversary

    Medicare and Medicaid will begin using their payment systems to induce quality improvements in the delivery system, for example by reducing hospital payments when a patient suffers from a hospital-acquired infection, and by rewarding doctors and other providers who do a good job of managing patients with complex conditions.

  • The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City at the Peabody Essex Museum

    “An emperor or king should have extensive grounds to stroll in and lovely vistas to enjoy. If he has such a place, he will be able to cultivate his mind and refine his emotions.” — The Qianlong emperor When the last emperor of China, Puyi, left the For…

  • Making Movies

    I learned how perception creates reality, how our inner understanding programs what is seen in the outer world much as a movie reel projects pictures on a screen. And just now, as I write this, an adult far from babyhood chronologically, do I accept that I am the producer of my own movies.

  • FactCheck.org Analyzes a Misleading Ad by 60 Plus

    Many of the ads feature seniors saying the law will “hurt the quality of our care.” But the law specifically forbids cuts in the basic package of Medicare benefits, and even adds some new features, such as wellness checkups. It also closes the “doughnut hole” gap in the prescription drug benefit.

  • Life Long Pursuits: Defining a Birder

    Wordless and fascinated, I shared the porch with these frenetic birds for well over an hour, watching bare-eyed as they performed their dance of life before me. It was like being on the set of my own personal Discovery channel program. I would have watched all day. And I would surely have liked to ask…

  • Science, Travel and History: Never Lost

    online visitors can learn to see the world as it appeared to the ancient Polynesians. Virtual voyage instruction, master navigators “talking story” in the Hawaiian tradition, an online planetarium with a tour of the Hawaiian night sky, podcasts