While I’m away in New Mexico, I’m leaving you in the capable hands of two sister members of Women Writiing the West.
For the first four days, enjoy the wisdom of Guest Blogger Janet Muirhead Hill, author of the Miranda and Starlight series of six books and Danny’s Dragon, a story of wartime loss.

As a […]

Janet Muirhead Hill, author of the Miranda and Starlight series of six books and Danny’s Dragon, a story of wartime loss, is a member of Women Writing the West.
As a seasoned writer she’s a good resource in going behind the scenes of a writer’s psyche to explain why we writers are so sensitive to […]

Here is one stanza from a nine stanza poem by William Blake that appears in “Songs of Innocence.” I read it as speaking of compassion as part of our interdependent connection…and a sense of spiritual care. –JGR
ON ANOTHER’S SORROW (stanza 1 of 9)
Can I see another’s woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another’s […]

On August 16th we remembered both my sister Julia Ann Thompson’s and my mother’s Ruth Evelyn Johnston Thompson’s passing (hard to tease out one from the other sometimes). After we viewed mother’s newly placed grave marker at the cemetery, we retired to Jerseyville’s only Chinese restaurant to partake of its buffet.
In general my father doesn’t […]

After dinner (that’s the mid-day meal in the country, folks) on the back eating porch, my father rested his eyes gazing outdoors to the garden and the hemlock tree.

“I planted that tree 60 years ago,” Pop said, “It’s grown some. I can remember the day I planted it. We had some hemlocks for sale, […]

I wanted to post this poem alongside my father’s commentary on the hemlocks. Some of you may know it, but it gets deeper for me when I see it alongside the story of the two hemlocks. And, just a reminder that “Riehlife,” the blog is the face page for “Riehlife” the website. If you go […]

This quote is widely attributed to Victor Hugo’s novel “Toilers of the Sea.” But is it? Read more about the quote search here at Victor Hugo Central. Never-the-less, here is the well-known and comforting quotation:
I am standing upon that foreshore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and […]

Last year we gathered together and I presented a special event for Hayner Public Library in Alton, Illinois. I gave a talk combined with music (Daddy and I played) and poetry followed by a workshop on memory. You can read this talk “Memories: Each Day Radiant with New Meaning” by clicking here which will take […]

Velda Brotherton and I were chatting under the electronic shade tree, sipping lemonade, trading our pet language peeves one day when we decided we’d post and link on some of them at the same time. Velda’s started her list on her blog “On Being a Writer.”
My top language peeve at the moment is the phrase […]

There have been times in history that are famous for artists-designers-architects-writers-dancers-musicians-theater folks coming together. These nexus in time have always hummed to me.
If I were to step into a time machine, I would set the dial to the Arts and Crafts Movement (late 1800s and early 1900s), or perhaps the Paris Left Bank in […]