writing

Jane Yolen (1939-2026)

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Jane Yolen has died. In my recent writing classes I always shared a handout on creativity by Jane Yolen. The way I found out that she died was on Threads from the granddaughter of Owl Moon illustrator John Schoenherr in a beautiful tribute that included some of her memories of the book. It was so sad and yet a beautiful way to have discovered this loss that affects not only the book world but the entire world.

The author of over 400 books in many different genres, Jane will be deeply missed.

Jane Yolen’s website

Write every day. You don’t have to write about anything specific, but you should exercise your writing muscle constantly.

Jane Yolen’s For Writers

I simply have a passion for writing, and I do it with joy

Anne Frank

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I grew up in a Jewish household in a Jewish neighborhood visiting grandmothers and cousins and observing holidays with the typical complaints of a child with too much energy to sit still and do nothing while the parents were at temple. We were often told to quiet it down while all of the kids were doing their best (or not so best) in the temple parking lot. I can still feel the heat on my face that came up from the asphalt even on these early fall days. These were my formative years. I lived this way in Queens, New York until I was ten, almost eleven when we moved to Long Island, which was different as night was to day.

While we moved east, my cousins moved south to Florida, and while we wrote often, we were bereft [th] of each other’s company which had been constant practically since I was born. My grandmother was their aunt, and my Bubbe (great-grandmother) was their grandmother. My new neighborhood was more diverse than Bayside’s Oakland Gardens, although our immediate neighbor was Jewish and he had a mixed accent of Eastern European and the Yiddish language. We traveled into Queens to see my grandmother, and into the Bronx to visit my uncle.

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100 Days…And Going

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Yesterday was the hundredth day of my 100-Day Project. That would presume that I have completed one hundred prompts. Well…

Overall, I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished and would highly recommend Suleika Jaouad’s book, The Book Of Alchemy: A Creative Practice For an Inspired Life. The essays she wrote and the ones she shared range from the funny, tales of life to the poignant heartbreaking twists and turns of life. Some resonated and some did not as all things in life can do. Some prompts were more difficult than others. I don’t recall which one, but I believe there was one that I completely noped out of, and went in a different direction. I laughed, I cried, and each prompt made me think and feel and wonder.

Today, I am on prompt 94 so I am nearly done with the book and I have decided to take two days with these last ten. I want the book to continue on. Last weekend, I was on a writing retreat with my wonderful writing group, and so my concentration was on that writing and reading, plotting and planning. I felt no guilt at all. Once Monday arrived, I got back in the flow of Alchemy.

The most recent one was a prompt about enchanted places and what makes them enchanted. There’s more to it than that, but that’s what I took away. I set that one aside on Friday, and went to one of my enchanted places: The Kateri Shrine in Fonda, New York. I spent about an hour there walking around, photographing flowers and chapels, signs and statues, and yes, writing. There was one picnic table with benches there and I sat there with my kindle and my keyboard and got out just over nine hundred words. There will be edits and additions.

After about day twenty, I made a plan to return to the prompts, and that is my plan for the summer between writing my book and keeping my deadlines, publishing on my website, and perhaps a Substack or two.
When all one hundred are completed sometime in the next week or so, I will read the end pages of the book, the contributors notes and bios, and then I plan to go back to what I’ve written and add, edit, flesh out the ones that have somewhere else to go. After all, that is what being a writer is: writing, writing, writing.

For the most part, I wrote my responses to the prompts on the same day I read them. I kept track of the subjects, categories, and word counts, although sometimes I feel as though word counts are arbitrary. I am stretching these last few out, savoring them. Even though I plan to go back to the ones written since the beginning of the project, there is nothing like doing something for the first time.

On some I added thoughts and paragraphs to the writing. Sometimes, I included ideas that were floating around formlessly in my head. Each prompt had so much potential, and it really is a wonder how many different ideas and inspirations I could get from one prompt. It’s glorious to see what others come up with from the same prompt as well.

Tangentially related, in the memoir class I’ve been taking this season, a book was recommended to me that I’ve begun, and it has given me the framework for my next book once St. Kateri’s Shrines (not the actual title) is completed. I had been struggling with that subject and how to approach it for years, and so seeing this one random inspiration is a gift to myself.

And now, on to prompt #94!

St. Kateri Tekakwitha

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I didn’t start out writing a book about St. Kateri. I’d never heard of her before a chance encounter with a random church in 2012, but that is an entire other story and a lifetime away, or at least that’s how it seems. As

I’ve written about before, I was drawn to her at the time very near to her canonization, and when I went through the conversion process, RCIA at the time, she was on my short list for confirmation saints. I went in another direction, partly for my attachment to Wales and partly because I still held onto the fear of appropriation. That might have been that, but in my discernment of joining the Catholic faith, I visited the shrine of the North American Martyrs and discovered holiness there. I found out that this palisade was the footprint of the original Mohawk village, Ossernenon where Kateri was born. She was born about ten years after the Jesuits martyrdom, but it never really resonated with me as her place. Over time, I discovered the Fonda shrine where Kateri had grown up. I visited the museum, the archaeological site, had a picnic there with the Cursillo group, a Catholic organization, and gradually began to read about her life. Her life in Fonda, her ‘escape’ to Quebec, the reception of her sacraments as a young adult, and her death at a very young age.

I’ve written about a lot of this, and some of it will feature in my book, but through it I learned more and more, and thought I’d visit her shrine in Canada to complete my journey with and alongside Kateri.

I’ve spent many meaningful hours at the shrine in Fonda, New York and the people there have been gracious and generous with their time and resources as I continue my research and writing. I feel a part of their community, and the first time I received an unexpected hug it came with a large smile welcoming me back. I felt it deep inside. I am drawn there more and more, each visit a gift. Learning about Kateri through different sources is also a gift.

She was born in 1656, parents died in 1659; she was baptized in 1676, received her first communion in 1677, and died in 1680. In 1980 she was beatified, and in 2012 canonized.

I give you the litany of her statistics to remind when big things happened in her life in order to inform that this year is a big deal anniversary. One member of the community did some math and as I said, Kateri was baptized in 1676. This was an Easter Sunday, and the date was April 5th. Because of that uncovering, it was realized that this year Easter Sunday also falls on April 5th! It is exactly to the day, and the Easter celebration that St. Kateri was baptized three hundred fifty years ago.

To commemorate this event, once in a lifetime I dare say, the Kateri Shrine in Fonda, NY requested ad received permission from the bishop of the Albany Diocese where the shrine resides to hold an Easter Mass on that auspicious day. The Shrine typically doesn’t open it’s buildings until May 1st when the weather is warmer as the public buildings have no heat, so this is a special day in so many ways.

The presider will be Fr. Michael Heine, OFM Conv., the Minister Provincial of the Conventual Franciscan Friars. They are the custodians of the shrine since its founding in 1938 by Conventual Franciscan Friar, Fr. Thomas Grassman.

It is a day or so away as I write this, but I am beyond excited to be going to the mass and to be part of this extraordinary event commemorating her baptism and we renew our own baptismal vows.

Information on attending this mass or any other events at the shrine can be found on their website: Saint Kateri Tekakwitha National Shrine & Historic Site

National Write Down Your Story Day!

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On this National Write Down Your Story Day, I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce my Substack friends. I began using Substack in order to follow a few outstanding journalists and activists: Jim Acosta, Michael Fanone, Terry Moran, Katie Phang, and others.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write and publish there even though I made a couple of posts exploring and thinking out loud, and I still don’t really know. I already have this website; I don’t think of it as a blog since I do a whole host of topics as you know.

Last week, I used World Book Day to write about my journey in the writing of my own book, and I think my plan is to keep the Substack related to writing.  Most of the content will be crossposted here as well.

Crossposts will be noted in the tags.

Nothing ever goes as planned.

Life happens.

I feel today that I am more me than I’ve ever been.

My Substack will eventually get a name, a theme, perhaps even a logo that makes me happy. There will be a FAQ, but the big points can be found here on my FAQ page (link in the menu).

With today’s post on Substack, I mentioned that I have three major works that I am focusing on:

  1. A labyrinth prayer book.
  2. A book about my relationship with Wales. This is a multi-genre memoir, spiritual, and travel book.
  3. A book about St. Kateri Tekakwitha and her shrines.
  4. There are other smaller publications planned related to some of the major topics I cover on my website. Examples of these are mental health, food, and spirituality.

Now, go ——- write your own story down!

100 Day Project – Halfway There

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Within the last fifty days, I shared with you my intention to begin and complete a one hundred day project following Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy. I’ve read her chapter introductions, and then each of the ten essays by various authors, absorbed their stories, dove into the prompts, and for the most part wrote for as long or as short a time that my essay needed.

Before I get into the weeds of this project and process, I would like to readily admit that I think I’ve succeeded in my non-stated goals. I am writing every day; not just these prompts, but working on my book, writing posts to publish on my website, taking notes for future writing projects.

Because the authors are so varied in their backgrounds, their writing styles, and the stories they choose to share, one thing that I’ve been doing is thinking and contemplating what I want to write about, how much of my personal experiences I want to share, and really concentrating on continuing to grow as a writer. I’m seeing that many of the prompts can be blended together, I can create multi-part essays and longer pieces, and there is a lot of inward looking. I can see going back again to some of the prompts and expanding what I’ve already written, starting the prompt anew, continuing or creating a chapter/monthly series on one or more of the prompts.

I do intend to share some of what I’ve written with the world.

Word counts are not the end all be all of writing. I could easily write over 1000 words a day, but is it worth reading? Not if it’s crap. Having said that, it’s still important to have touchstones to know where I am in the writing process. While the essays I’ve written with these prompts can be left as standalone pieces, some may be refashioned, edited, and of course, everything can be made better.

For the fifty days so far, I have written approximately 25,133 words, which amounts to 503 words per day. Some days there were a hundred words written, some seven hundred, and there were one or two days when over a thousand words were completed.

While the book gives you no special rules, and you decide what you want to get out of the project, I started with six simple suggestions that I fashioned for myself. They were to keep me on task, accountable, and focused.

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A Book Journey (TBC) for World Book Day

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We’re a couple of days late, but I feel like World Book Day is on my calendar twice, so maybe talking about books throughout the year without an “official holiday” is a good thing, yeah? Can’t have too many books to read, write, or recommend, right?

For this year’s World Book Day, I thought I would talk about the journey of my own book in progress. I am no where near the stage of publication, but I am trying to work diligently to get on track for a more consistent timeline with tangible goals on the calendar and in order to do that, I should reflect back to see where I started and where I’ve come.

I began this venture without having a book goal in mind. I was moving towards a devotion to St. Kateri, and having visited her two shrines in the immediate area, I wanted to visit the shrine in Canada where she died* and is entombed. That exploration led to discovering her actual original burial place which was a few miles away from her tomb, and then with covid interference delaying our visit led to other factors, meetings, and research that eventually led to writing this book.

The main change that influenced the book was deciding on more of a pilgrimage to her final resting place rather than a stop on our vacation. The second was wanting to visit the places/shrines where she actually lived, where her footsteps roamed. I wanted to follow her to these places and envision her there.

Once that began, I thought I’d write about the shrines themselves – something of a travel guide to St. Kateri’s shrines, and that simply ballooned into something much more than that.

I have been privileged to have met with people who know Kateri, who were instrumental in leading to her sainthood, to her people, the Kanien’kéha who still live on the land that her village moved to after her death.

In a few short weeks (Easter Sunday), will be the 350th anniversary of St.Kateri’s baptism right here in New York. To the day! I am so excited to be a part of the shrine community and am looking forward to the Easter Mass to be celebrated there.

That is the gift of this journey for me – visiting Kateri’s homes and getting to know others who feel the way I feel about her and the excitement of continuing forward in this adventure.

Starting Your Lenten Journey

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Mark A. Villano, CSP, Daily Reflections for Lent: Not by Bread Alone 2026, p. 7

This was the meditation for Ash Wednesday. As soon as I read it, it spoke to me. I am a planner. Whether it’s my trek to work (today I had four bags plus my phone and keys) or vacation or retreat (enough clothes for a week even if it’s only a weekend) or Lent (you saw my list last week).

The most important thoughts to me are the last two questions:

What do I want to carry with me during the days ahead?

What prayer exercises or spiritual practices will accompany me?

As with all my excursions, I have a tote bag. Or three. I load myself up with what I *might* need even when, with experience, I know that I won’t need all of it, and I probably won’t need half of it. So, as I begin my Lenten journey, what do I want to carry with me for the next forty or so days?

What prayers and practices will I take with me? And which ones will I leave behind? What is working for this Lent that may not have worked last year? And on the opposite side of the coin, what worked last year that just doesn’t feel right this year?

The rest of this week is thinking time for me.

Meditating.

Contemplating.

Discerning.

I’ll come back next week and write about what I’ve discovered. In the meantime, if you’re observing Lent, what are you doing to make it meaningful for yourself?

Check in for Lent

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Lent has snuck up on us again this year. It is quite early with Easter happening the first weekend in April.  I just finished listening to Fr. James Martin’s Ash Wednesday podcast, and it reminded me of many of the things that I want to do to make my Lent intentional. As with the last few years, I am not giving anything specific up. I am going to continue to be intentional in what I am taking in whether that is food, candy, drink, or media. I want to put more thought into the things I’m doing, saying, and bringing into my life.

This year marks the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis, and Pope Leo has declared this to be a Jubilee Year in his honor from January 10, 2026 through January 10, 2027. There are all kinds of ways to earn plenary indulgences and what not, but that’s for someone else.

Another exciting event this year is that it is the 350th anniversary of St. Kateri Tekakwitha’s baptism. This happened right here in New York state, and the shrine in Fonda will be celebrating. One way is by having mass on Easter Sunday, which is her baptismal anniversary to the day.

Some of my other Lenten Intentions include:

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