Leaving a house after 10 years of residency is hard. With this particular house, it’s not just the downsizing of possessions, the packing, the deep cleaning and everything involved in selling the place. This house is special. This is the house that Kate and Jack...

So many things come in groups of 100. Years build to centuries. Special attention is paid to the first 100 days of a new administration. And, at last, this is my 100th blog. This is where I started with blog #1: My name is Susan Matley and I’m a writer. If there’s a...

If you’ve been on Facebook this week (I don’t blame you if you dropped out because you just can’t take it any more), you’ve likely seen a post about how people can’t agree on anything, with a photo of a stick temptingly captioned This is a stick. Many have joined in...

This time of year many people are succumbing to the flu, a highly contagious disease that is hard to avoid if you spend much time in public. We even had a mild bout in our household, in spite of flu shots and living quietly in a rural area. But there are other...

Welcome to the Third Draft Follies! The dreckish first draft of my upcoming novel Beyond Big-G City has been pounded and shaped into a respectable second draft. Now I’m closing in on the third draft, after which I hand it over to my friend the Line Editor From Hell...

Bet you didn’t know I was an American Buddhist in Prescott, WA. There’s a good reason for that. I’m not. Not yet, anyway. I’m working on it, though. Here’s the story. A couple of months ago, heartsick and frustrated by the state of the world in general and America in...