I was a gentle soul. I could have been anointed highest priestess in earlier times.
Tender is the night and days in my gentle being. Lilting phrases rolled from my tongue. Whenever I spoke, another angel either received her wings, a small dowery or free shipping from Amazon Prime. That’s when I received my prized order that would indeed help keep my files and entire life orderly.
Oh the thrill of anticipation, as I attempted to open the plastic packing holding my new label maker. […]

When it comes to dancing, I have two left feet, which makes it extremely difficult to buy shoes. If I were on “Dancing With the Stars,” the judges would all give me perfect scores — of zero. Len Goodman would add insult to injury by saying that only an injury could improve my dancing.
But take it from me, Dread Astaire: I know a winning performance when I see one. And I just happened to see one recently when I attended a dance recital starring my granddaughters, […]

If Maya Angelou and Ernest Hemingway regularly wrote in hotels, there must be some literary magic to be found in a room with a “Do Not Disturb” sign.
The Marriott at the University of Dayton has partnered with the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop to provide complimentary hotel rooms as part of a package for two emerging humor writers — the winners of A Hotel Room of One’s Own: The Erma Bombeck | Anna Lefler Humorist-in-Residence Program. […]

This morning I went shopping. I need just a bathing suit, so of course I won’t buy anything else. Deep, low chuckle: I’m living in Italy, I have a charge card that works, and I’m breathing.
My landlady Giovanna kindly offered to take me to a shop that sells swimwear. Buying a bathing suit is about as much fun for women as circumcision is for men, but men must do that only once. In Italy, […]

The anthology, Laugh Out Loud: 40 Women Humorists Celebrate Then and Now…Before We Forget, has been named one of the best indie humor books of 2019 by the world’s largest not-for-profit book awards program for independent publishers and self-published authors.
Published in 2018 by Allia Zobel Nolan in collaboration with the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop at the University of Dayton, the book of nostalgic, humorous coming-of-age essays from 40 funny women in the U.S. and Canada was named a finalist in the humor category in the 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Awards program. […]