ARTICLES
- Political Engagement for Introverts (Communities, Fall 2024, Issue 204)
- Taking the Long Way Home (Communities, Spring 2024, Issue 202)
- The Queen, the Gardener, and Me (Communities, Spring 2021, Issue 190)
- My Father the Toddler (Communities, Spring 2015, Issue 166)
- Finding a treasure in the woods (Charm, June 2014)
- Internal Intimacy (Communities, Summer 2011, Issue 151)
- We’re All in the Family (Communities, Spring 2010, Issue 146)
- Maria, Full of Grace (movie review, Charm, Oct/Nov 2009)
- Family Chores: Laundry (Home Education Magazine, Nov/Dec 1994)
- How to adapt to the needs of deaf wrestlers (Referee, October 1994)
BOOKS
- The Book of the Deceiver (2022)
- The Jeweled Room (2021)
- Pirates in Pursuit (2022)
- Della (who wasn’t a witch) (2024) (in process)
- Be Who You Are (out of print)
- Here I Am (out of print)
“A Little Spicy, A Little Dicey”
This is a collection of “cops and robbers” spy/thriller genre adventure books that are “little” in both content and format. They are available for purchase at Amazon. These can be read in any order, no series/sequence needed.
Ghost Soldier
The Incident at Lafitte’s Lounge
The Killer in Cypress Swamp
Bold Prey
CONTENT
The content is just a little “spicy” … there might be beautiful women in skimpy outfits, and some lingering looks across the room from handsome men … but no graphic scenes of you-know-what in the romance department. The action and adventure might get just a little “dicey”, with detectives and spies on the lookout for various villains from the underworld, and with a few mentions of various kinds of weapons … but nothing gory, bloody, or graphically violent.
FORMAT
The format is super short fiction with 1000 +/- words (approx).
Font is super large print in Verdana 25.
ORIGIN STORY
Why are the stories so short and the font so big?
This collection was originally written for my dad as he was approaching his 90th birthday. He always loved to read, but as he got older, the heavy weight of large print books was a challenge, and he didn’t have quite the same attention span needed to finish the longer ones. He also could not see quite as well as he used to, so even “large print” was starting to be hard for him to read.
To cure all these issues at the same time, the series A Little Spicy, A Little Dicey was created to provide super short stories that can be finished in one reading session, with super extra-large print, even bigger than usual “large print” books use (these are Verdana 25, huge compared to the usual font size 16 in many large print books). The stories are short, target length is about 1000 +/- words. This is not very long, true, but it is long enough for people who need a short story, for various reasons.
Since then, I’ve learned that these books are also appreciated by many other adults …
* low vision
* short attention spans
* ADD/ADHD
* dyslexia
* native English speakers who are now learning to read later in life
* adult ESL students who are learning to read in English as their L+ language
* some adult ESL classes, depending on your class philosophy and sponsoring organization
CONTENT STATS
Word Count – 1000+/-
Font – Text is in easy-to-read Verdana, font size 25
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level – target range is 6th grade, approx
Flesch Reading Ease – 80-90, approx
Are you thinking a 6th grade reading level seems low?
Learn more about adult literacy in the US from the National Literacy Institute.