Quirky Surprise in Fort Worth When I tell people that Fort Worth is home to a life size wax sculpture replica of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” the response is usually, “Huh?” followed by a puzzled laugh. After all, that’s hardly what we expect from a city that bills itself as “Where the West begins,” right? In fact, when out of town guests visit, my husband and I generally take them to see the historic stockyards. Sure, some locals turn their nose up at this, just as Seattlites often scoff at the idea of visiting the Space Needle, but…
Tag: Tui Snider
Remember that magician I met through my books? If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may recall that I made friends with a reader last year who not only lives overseas, but gave my books their first reviews on Amazon UK. Here’s a post I wrote about how Owen Lean (aka The Bachelor of Magic) and I became pen pals through my books: How I Became a Fan of My Fan! Owen is a fascinating guy; which is why Teal Gray and I interviewed him on our radio show a few weeks ago (check out the replay…
Historic Cemetery Symbols While it’s common for evergreen trees to be planted in historic graveyards, pine needles and pine cones are not symbols I see engraved on headstones as often as other trees – such as the oak tree. Pine trees: Immortality While it’s true that many coffins have been made from pine, this had more to do with practicality than symbolism. Where pine trees were widely available, they were often used to make coffins. However, as a symbol (much like other evergreens, including holly, ivy, and yew) pine trees are associated with immortality and eternal life. Rather than lose…
What is HARO? For this month’s IWSG post, I wanted to pass along a helpful tip for writers. It’s called HARO, which stands for Help a Reporter Out. I found out about HARO while standing in the lunch buffet line at DFWcon, a wonderful annual writing conference here in Texas. There were two authors standing ahead of me, Nina Amir and Harry Hall, and their conversation was so interesting that I not only joined in, but I wound up taking notes as we shuffled along! Why should writers join HARO? One tip that Nina passed along was that Harry and I…
Historic Cemetery Symbol of the Week Last week’s post was about the symbolic meaning of lambs, which are quite a common sight in historic cemeteries. This week, however, I wanted to talk about the symbolism of something less commonly seen on cemetery headstones: Daffodils. What do Daffodils symbolize? Just because it’s a bit rare on headstones, doesn’t mean this gorgeous blossom lacks symbolic meaning. Since they are some of the first flowers to bloom each spring, daffodils are the birth flower for those, like me, who were born in March. In fact, spring has many symbolic associations, such as new…
Big Santa is watching… You’ve probably been aware of Santa Claus since you were a toddler. Simply knowing a big, bearded guy at the North Pole has the OCD super power ability to not only see your every move, but to determine whether your collective annual activities should be labeled “bad” or “good,” probably even influenced your behavior from time to time. For instance, once when my nephews were 3 and 5-years-old, I overheard them squabbling in their bedroom. I was just about to step in when the older one said, “We’d better quit fighting.” “Why?” “Because Santa is watching.” Needless…