I got my first library card at the Tempe Public Library, on the corner of 5th and Myrtle. I remember entering that evening with my family, selecting my first books, and celebrating at Dairy Queen afterwards. In a family of readers, it was a rite of passage. At right and left of the fireplace rose … More Libraries, Those Wonderful Places!
And the fiery whirlwind, fierce and vastHurried away in the mouldering past. “Ashes of Roses,” George M. Baker The Great Boston Fire of 1872 started in a six-story granite building and burned through downtown Boston for two days, destroying 776 buildings over 65 acres. Eleven firemen and fifteen civilians were killed. The monetary loss was … More Ashes of Roses: Hope Amidst Destruction
I had absolutely no idea what marrons were when I first read this line. And for someone who generally looks up words she doesn’t know, I waited an extraordinarily long time to investigate this one. Marrons are sweet chestnuts, Castanea sativa. They can be roasted, or they can be soaked in sugar syrup and vanilla … More Marrons at Last! A Sweet Chestnut Discovery
If a character in the book you were reading put her laptop and her HydroFlask into the same tote bag, you’d call it foreshadowing. I missed it, though. In a hurry to follow the ambulance taking my mom to the hospital, I was utterly surprised when I looked into the bag and found my laptop … More When Troubles Abound, “Kick, Frog, Kick!”
It is clear: I am a big-project person. When I was a child and built with mud and sticks under the bushes by my house, I didn’t just build a hut; I built a village, complete with a corral and a cemetery. When I got curious about the brain mechanisms underlying both language and movement, … More Going Big
Sometimes, you want a book to be special, not only in content but in its physical manifestation. … More The Value of Beautiful Books
When the last chapter was written, the story “put to bed,” as it were, there was more I wanted to say. Happy Landings is Emilie’s story, but it is my work, the result of choices made for reasons that matter to me. … More My Thoughts on Biography and Emilie Loring
The Emilie Loring Collection 