I read this book (and watched the movie based on it) just because Virginia Evans said it inspired her to write her epistolary novel, The Correspondent. Both were a good read. I am going to try to write an epistolary essay.

Book Review: Letter-Writing Bonds | The Harrisonburg Citizen Perhaps because of my nostalgia for this pre-Internet era of letter writing, I have an affinity for epistolary essays and novels.

@bsky.app This epistolary novel celebrates the practice of letter-writing. The author, a graduate of the local state university in my town--James Madison University--will be giving a book talk this coming Thursday in Harrisonburg. tinyurl.com/yc2txbak

First Amendment freedoms flourish through Weather Vane pages - EMU News Campus newspaper gives students a voice It’s no secret that print newspapers are an endangered species. Cities as large as Pittsburgh and Atlanta are without printed daily newspapers, as media

@bsky.app I'm so proud of this team of student journalists that I work with as a faculty advisor for the student newspaper. They put out the paper and then I provide a critique (no prior review). They can take or leave my suggestions. tinyurl.com/mr3e5m36

I wonder what it was like to be a schoolteacher in 1874. I am spending the day in the National Gallery of Art.

Book Review: Workplace Shenanigans | The Harrisonburg Citizen There’s a certain amount of masking that people do so that their co-workers don’t learn too much about them…

Rebecca Kauffman's new novel will be released Feb. 24, and she'll be participating in a couple of book events in Harrisonburg. I always enjoy hearing about her writing processes.
tinyurl.com/ya82bw9m

Book Review: A Family and Technology | The Harrisonburg Citizen The story explores the impact of technology on family relationships. Who is to blame for all of this?

This novel about the impact of AI on families is gripping--an easier read than some of the news articles and academic articles I've read in the last few years. tinyurl.com/jxvdbkz8

I have been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art many times and I also traveled in Egypt in 2008, so it was interesting to read a novel in which the characters moved between these two settings. More snow day reading.

Snow day reading. It was fun to learn about bookshop culture in Tokyo and how one young person got hooked on reading.

Cooper Hawk fans its feathers

#bird #photography #birdoftheday #blueskybirds #birdsofbluesky #canonphotography #nature #wildlife

I do like how this background thang I painted came out

I played with my paints for the first time since last summer. It felt heavy but also healing. It's hard to create art knowing I won't be able to share it with my mom.

Acrylic on paper monoprint.
#printmaking #art #healing

My friend who gave me this book for Christmas knew me well. I love how art history and appreciation for 52 works of art in Paris museums are integrated into the novel. A grandfather and granddaughter are off their phones and in conversation about art.

I love the premise of this novel--that a literary work will resonate differently with different people and also possibly cause a pivot in their lives toward hope and meaning,

I really don't know about everyone else, but when I wrote book reviews, I read the books, cover to cover.

Book Review: Friendly City | The Harrisonburg Citizen A year-long series of weekly columns about walking in Harrisonburg is being published in book form - with a launch on Dec. 5 at Parentheses Books

Sofia Samatar writes about what she notices in the walkable small city--Harrisonburg--where she lives. I also live here and love this small city.

hburgcitizen.com/2025/12/03/b...

You had a great run as a full-time teacher. You made a huge contribution nationally to the support of ELLs in schools with your books and communication about this group of students. I'm sure you are also continuing to do so.

You left the classroom?

Research Finds That Employers Are Looking For People With Social Skills – I’d Show Students This Article If I Was Still In Classroom Prior to the pandemic, when I would give students the option to work in groups or on their own, I might have gotten one-or-two students, if any, who would choose to work alone. Post-pandemic…

Research Finds That Employers Are Looking For People With Social Skills – I’d Show Students This Article If I Was Still In Classroom larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2025/11/28/r...

two abstract paintings side by side with a multiple colors, horizontal lines, circles.

this turned out unexpectedly fascinating. I hope you’re doing/making things that make you curious and delighted.
🤍🕊️
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#artistsonbluesky #blueskyartshow #abstractart #abstractexpressionism #painter #art #artist #womensartbluesky #abstractartist #blueskyart #oregonartist #oregon

One side is darker than the other but let’s pretend that’s intentional. Ombré coconut pie 😂

Is there anything more anticlimactic than Black Friday, a day that has been happening for weeks?

Virginia Poets to Lift Words Off the Page A Nov. 6 reading at Parentheses Books will feature Pulitzer Prize-nominated Virginia poet Latorial Faison. On Nov. 1, seven other Virginia poets will give a reading.

Virginia poets in town (Harrisonburg!)

tinyurl.com/y4sj6msr

Harrisonburg

@bsky.app RIP, Diane Keaton. I watched you star with Warren Beatty in Reds in a downtown theater in Manhattan when I was 19 years old. It was one of the most memorable big-screen experiences of my life. Epic film.

Sojourns in the Middle Kingdom | Anabaptist World From early missionaries to teachers of English, from the creation of the China Educational Exchange to Mennonite Partners in China, Mennonites represent a tiny but important part of an evolving story.

Book Review by Lee Snyder, former president of Bluffton University: "These young women found themselves in a world they could scarcely imagine." anabaptistworld.org/sojourns-in-...

Jane Goodall with monarch butterfly scarf

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.”
― Jane Goodall

💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

Can Mennonites write art? | Anabaptist World The editor of a new anthology of Mennonite literary criticism penned over 150 years hopes a carefully curated resource about the past may inform the future of the field.

Yes. Mennonites can write art.
anabaptistworld.org/can-mennonit...

Book Review: A Fairy Tale (with Startling Realism) In reviewing a new work of speculative fiction by local author Keith Miller, The Citizen book critic Mary Ann Zehr finds uncomfortable real-life parallels

Speculative fiction and real-life events in my community are trending toward each other.
tinyurl.com/y2tux6rp

Kirsten Eve Beachy More reviews are in!

If you are local, come out to Parentheses Books, Harrisonburg's independent bookstore, today, Saturday, at 4 pm to hear a reading by Kirsten Beachy from her new memoir. After the reading I'll be asking her a few questions. granolamennonite.com

Book Review: An Unpublished (Until Now) 19th-Century Novel The Citizen’s book critic explores a novel by a prominent Black resident of Harrisonburg written nearly 150 years ago but only recently published

Thanks to the gift of papers by his granddaughter to James Madison University, Harrisonburg resident George A. Newman's novel written not long after the Civil War is now in the public eye. tinyurl.com/hhw83t9z