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My father-in-law, Donald Lupescu, passed away on the morning of February 6th. He had gone into the hospital on Friday evening after a fall, and they discovered severe bleeding on his brain and an infected valve in his heart. It proved too much for his body, and he became unresponsive on Saturday and slowly slipped away, giving family the chance to ( Read more... )

I asked my friend Pat Prather, a talented photographer for 8 Eyes Photography and a brilliant artist, to create a memory board that I could mount in my kitchen. It would be a place to put precious photographs and mementos so that I could see them every day.


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When I do interviews or visit with book clubs, people often ask how I could write about an elderly woman in The Silence of Trees with such authenticity.

Sometimes I answer with a variation of, “She’s certainly inspired by people I’ve known.” This is true, but…

Other times I give the more esoteric (but slightly more honest in my opinion) answer of , “ ( Read more... )