I’ve had the unique opportunity to be both an attendee and a member of the faculty at the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop. As an attendee, at my first conference, with one local newspaper column, I arrived petrified (not petrified like a Woolly Mammoth but petrified like a chocolate addict who’s run out of her stash of M&Ms).
In my column, I painted myself as a cool former city girl transplanted to the suburbs where I found myself struggling to acclimate in a community of minivans, […]
Essays and News
Who's Publishing What: Thank You, God: from Kids Around the World
As Thanksgiving nears, Allia Zobel Nolan’s children’s book, Thank You, God: from Kids Around the World, published by Zondervan, offers an opportunity for children to “discover what their friends in Egypt, Russia, Africa, China and other lands are grateful for — things like koala bears, northern lights, windmills and more.”
Publisher’s Weekly calls the book “a colorful introduction to gratitude, tolerance and world geography for preschoolers of all ethnic backgrounds.”
A former senior editor at Reader’s Digest and a prolific author, […]
Batman in my belfry
I was composing a new blog post on my computer when I heard a clunk, chunk coming from my outdated air conditioner. Because the wall AC unit faced the outside, occasional bugs would appear in my living space. Sometimes a random bird would fly into the unit, but they were too big to break through. What came through the vent now was not a bug or a bird. A bat with a wingspan of about 12 inches had somehow squeezed through a small opening and was now speeding in circles around my living room. […]
Y’all were a big help
Just when I got rid of my Southern accent, it sucked me right back in — thanks to the 2018 Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop.
After taking Wendy Liebman’s Stand-Up Comedy Boot Camp, I was able to chat with her for a moment. Telling her that I speak with several accents and work them limitedly into my speaking engagements, she excitedly said, “Do them!” And so I did. Besides my French, High British and Cockney accents, […]
Starting small and going big
Erma Bombeck was funny, smart and she knew how to become famous. She must have had some sort of genius in that way, because she started out writing obits in Dayton, Ohio, and became a legend around the world.
Starting small and going big. She did it, and because of her, so many others have followed in her footsteps. Thanks to the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, many of us have found our voices and “gone big.”
In my case, […]
