What’s New

  • 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…

  • Bitter Primaries Hurt High-profile Candidates’ Chances in the General Election

    Stanford political scientist Andrew Hall found that contentious primaries that receive heavy media coverage and voter attention tend to produce nominees who do less well in the general election. But, if the primary has not generated much attention, then the primary winner is less affected — and sometimes even helped — in the general election.

  • More Thoughts on the Personal Essay: To Write or Not to Write?

    Joan L. Cannon writes: A writer doesn’t write, darn it, for him or herself; that labor goes to satisfy a reader, or more accurately, multiple readers. Maybe we don’t expect to make a living at it, much less get rich doing it, but we bother in the hope that there will be a few minds…

  • Beating the Brain Drain: States Focus on Retaining Older Workers; Finding Replacements Won’t Be Easy

    California’s chief of workforce development, is trying different tactics to keep senior workers on the job: offering a flexible work schedule, promoting work-life balance and creating the first government-wide employee management survey to assess the needs of workers. The idea is to find out who is leaving — and why.

  • Ferida Wolff’s Backyard: The Best Nest & When Birds Get Busy

    Ferida Wolff writes: Three years ago I noticed a couple of geese outside of a shopping center. I wondered if they were lost. They seemed to be scouting around looking for something, which I thought might be the rest of their flock. After a few days they had settled onto a garden display and it…

  • A GAO Report On Smartphone Data: Information and Issues Regarding Surreptitious Tracking Apps That Can Facilitate Stalking

    Several tracking apps were marketed to individuals for the purpose of tracking or intercepting the communications of an intimate partner to determine if that partner was cheating. About one-third of the websites marketed their tracking apps as surreptitious, specifically to track the location and intercept the smartphone communications of children, employees, or intimate partners without…

  • Downton Abbey Graduates: What’s Next for the Cast?

    While we may never again see the Dowager launch a new zinger or Lady Mary raise a fresh eyebrow, we can look forward to seeing Downton’s talented and hardworking cast for many years to come. Find out what’s next for Downton Abbey’s cast members, where you can see them, and how far their new roles…

  • The Drug Overdose Epidemic: States Require Opioid Prescribers to Check for ‘Doctor Shopping’

    By tapping into a database of opioid painkillers dispensed in the state, physicians can check patients’ opioid medication history, as well as their use of other combinations of potentially harmful drugs, such as sedatives and muscle relaxants, to determine whether they are at risk of addiction or overdose death. “We in the health care profession…

  • Hands in the Dough; The Sound the Hot Loaves Made When You “Thumped” Them to See If They Were Done

    Julia Sneden wrote: I remember that when I was small, my mother baked bread every week despite a killer schedule as a graduate student and teacher, never mind running a household that included two children, two grandmothers and a great aunt. She did have what was the 1930’s most modern bread-making appliance, a large, galvanized…

  • Texas Woman’s University: Women’s History in Texas, the Southwest and US

    The Gateway to Women’s History is an online site providing electronic access to primary source materials from the Woman’s Collection at Texas Woman’s University. Visitors can access photographs, documents, pamphlets, menus, programs, catalogs, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, negatives, artifacts, clothing, textiles, and descriptive records of all our manuscript collections.

  • Elaine Soloway’s Rookie Widow Series: Double Dating With My Mother; A Resting Place In The Garden of Eden; From Third Wheel to Driver’s Seat

    Elaine Soloway writes: I won’t change my appearance or wardrobe to hook a guy. In my earlier single stage, I wore 3-inch heels, clothing I deemed alluring, and shopped at Victoria’s Secret for the ‘just in case” dates. Now, I refuse to dye my grey hair, get Botox or plastic surgery, or don anything that…