Flora, Goddess of Flowers May first. May Day is a many-splendored thing with more official holiday designations than perhaps any other day of the year. I recall as a child weaving May Day wreaths from spirea branches cut from our bushes and hanging them on our neighbors door. I especially liked hanging my wreath on…
One of my greatest pleasures in being an author and having my book “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary” out in the world is hearing from readers. This note and two beautiful photos of one of my homeplaces, Lake County, Northern California, arrived from John Frary recently. I was so touched that I wanted to share it.—JGR…
INTERNET RADIO At PIVR click on the March 31, 2008 archive recording where my name and my book’s title appears. March 31, 2008 Janet Elaine Smith PIVR (Passionate Internet Voices Radio) “Marketing for Fun and Profit spoke with me and I read my poem “Crocus.” (Which you can read on the sidebar of Riehlife under…
The world flashes by as we touch the ground. I’ve been to L. A. by car and by train before, but this is my first time to fly in. My conversation with an IT consultant from Southern India on migration, culture, and history mingles with the site of green, tiny flowers on the airstrip, and…
For me, family dates are engraved on my heart. March 13th will ever be Julia’s day. Will ever be my sister’s birthday. She lives within us, and curiously, seems to age right along with us. On this birthday, and every birthday, she lives beyond her death day. In 2005 on the first birthday after Julia’s…
Janet Grace Riehl and Erwin A. Thompson, father-daughter writing team TREASURE CHEST by Janet Grace Riehl from “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary” He labors in the grove of service. Remembers flat tires, repaired. Loans proffered for crises. Then his somber face glows with the light of a thousand-watt angel. Memories of good turns returned is a…
Yvonne Perry of Writers in the Sky Creative Writing Services asked me to send her a poem for her February newsletter. Click here to read the entire newsletter. I sent an excerpt from WINDOW FRAME originally published in “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary” and dedicated to my mother Ruth Evelyn Johnston Thompson (January 4, 1916-May 1,…
In 2006 I published my book “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary”with iUniverse. While my first-line audience was friends and family, I quickly found there were second-third-and-fourth-line audiences rippling out there who were interested in my book, my topic, and by extension, in me and what I thought and had to say. I marketed “Sightlines” by every…
Click here to read Redwood Coast Review’s lead article by Daniel Barth, “Staying Afloat: The poor devil author in the 21st century,” online in pdf form. Daniel Barth’s article is well-researched and chockfull of information about Big Picture Publishing and how three authors in his region, Northern California, have responded in three distinctive ways to…
Writers in the Sky, “a 3-Fold, Production (Blog, Podcast and Newsletter) filled with information about writing, publishing and book publicity” has the gracious and competent Yvonne Perry at the helm of Writers in the Sky Creative Writing and Editing Services. Velda Brotherton, author, “Fly with the Mourning Dove” “Yvonne has uploaded another show to Writers…