Making Sushi

Today, I've posted a story about my husband Making Sushi over at Inscribe Writer's Online. I actually wrote the story back before we moved out of the city, but then lost it in my computer files until recently. :)

Book Review: The King's Legacy

The King’s Legacy: A Story of the Wisdom of the Ages by Jim Stovall is a parable about a king who wants to leave a legacy of his reign behind him. He calls his advisors and asks them for suggestions for a suitable legacy. One advisor recommends an unusual legacy: The Wisdom of the Ages. Thus begins the King’s search for this Wisdom.

All who wish to share their wisdom are invited to do so before the king, his nobles, and his wise men. As they listen to wisdom from a merchant, a soldier, and a poet, some feel that they’ve already heard enough wisdom—surely one of these is the Wisdom of the Ages. Yet the King says the search must continue. Others feel that some aren’t worthy of presenting Wisdom—that wisdom should come from those who have title or credentials. Yet in the end, the Wisdom of the Ages comes from a most unexpected source.

The King’s Legacy should be read slowly, as each short chapter contains much to think on. It is a simple, short story, with each chapter accompanied by old-fashioned, hand-drawn renderings of each person who presents their wisdom. At the end, it includes space for the reader to record their own wisdom.

The wisdom in several chapters jumped out at me. The Parent, the only woman in the story, says to the officials and nobles gathered in the Throne Room, “Each of you has my respect, my admiration, and my loyalty for the positions you hold and the duties you perform. But I submit to you that no one will impact the next generation and succeeding generations throughout this kingdom more than a parent.”

A Labourer is one of those who seems unworthy present wisdom, yet he leaves each of his listeners looking at the Throne Room in a new manner when he says, “I have also learned that while I can apply my skill to my work with the stones, I cannot create a magnificent structure like this Throne Room by myself. The carpenters, stained-glass artists, and metalworkers all must do their part in order for us to be able to enjoy this wonderful Throne Room. Just as each stone on every level of a wall is critical to the integrity of that wall, each labourer from all the crafts must perform his task well in order to have a successful project.”

Jim Stovall has written a powerful parable that will be treasured by many—his own legacy for our society.

The First Five Sentences

A little while back, Eden of If You Give a Girl a Pen shared what she was learning from The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman. She explains that “the first five pages are the most important of any in our books or stories.” These pages must hook the reader or editor and give them a reason to keep reading.

To follow that post, the girls of If You Give a Girl a Pen decided to offer a critique for just the first five sentences of a story. I sent in five sentences that I’ve been struggling with—sentences that are already the second beginning I’ve written for that story. It was interesting to read the other submissions, to see what I think of a story just from the first paragraph or two—would I keep reading or not?

I decided to look at a few of my stories again, at just the first five sentences. Here’s a few. Would you keep reading?


“But then, of course, it jams. Right in the middle of the competition.” Jack’s voice is loaded with blame that he shoots at her like one of the bullets from his gun. Kelsey takes a deep breath and lets it out while she silently counts to ten.
“I thought we agreed that now wasn’t the best time to buy a new gun,” she says, struggling to keep her voice level.


We all remember it as the summer my brother Joe brought Ed home. Actually, that only happened ‘cause Benson quit at the sawmill, which was a huge disaster at the time, but got forgotten in the later excitement. See, Benson was the original owner of the sawmill. He’d started it with his brother Larry, way back when the town was just growing out of the mountainside. It wasn’t one of those affairs that ran the town – most of the townsmen were miners – but it provided lumber for the growing town, wood for the stoves, and work enough for Benson and Larry.


Brenna drove by instinct. She had forgotten the road numbers and some of the landmarks had changed, yet somehow she still found it. She remembered the last hill in the road and then the big evergreen trees on the right. The barbed-wire fence and the gate across the road were new. She parked there and got out, staring through her sunglasses at the brick house peeping from the evergreens, the gravel road curving past it and into the field, the cows at the far end.

Kids' Games and Activities

When Sunshine was six months old, she was beginning to be more interested in the world around her—yet not able to do very much. In desperation, I turned to the Internet, googling activities to do with babies. As she’s gotten older, these activities have changed, but the Internet is still a wealth of resources from other moms with great ideas... Read more at the Mom Writers' Literary Magazine blog.

Grandma's Rhubarb Pie

Today I'm a guest blogger over at Carla's Writing Cafe. Carla has been running "Specials of the Week" in her cafe, and when I left a comment about rhubarb pie on one of the specials, she asked me to share the recipe. Pop on over for the recipe of my favourite summer treat!

Book Review: It Happened in Italy

The stories of Jews in Germany and its surrounding countries are familiar the world over. This year, my husband participated in the school book club and brought home the books for me to read too. We read Twenty and Ten, The Boy Who Dared, Four Perfect Pebbles—all books about the Holocaust and the hardships Jews endured under Hitler.

So when I saw Elizabeth Bettina's book It Happened in Italy, I was interested. I didn’t know much about Italy’s role in World War II. What I found out surprised me, as I had never heard it before. Bettina says, “Wondering why almost no one really knows what happened—even those who live in the areas in Italy where these events occurred—compelled me to tell this story.”

It Happened in Italy is Bettina’s discoveries about what it was like to be Jewish in Italy at the time of the Holocaust. Bettina first discovered the story when she saw a picture from her family’s village in Italy: a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi stood side-by-side on the steps of a church. Except that everyone knew there were no Jews in Italy. Or were there?

Bettina’s questions about the picture led to a huge story and a web of amazing connections. She records the stories of nearly fifty Jews who survived the Holocaust because they were in Italy. They tell of living normal lives during the War, of picnicking and playing cards in the Italian “concentration camps,” of hundreds of Italians who hid them from German soldiers.

Walter Wolff is one of the survivors whose story Bettina shares. Wolff grew up in Frankfurt, Germany, and “lived through every-increasing anti-Semitism and through Kristallnacht.” He and his brother were arrested the day after Kristallnacht and sent to Buchenwald. They had been accepted as students in the US, and because their mother had papers to prove this, they were released. Unfortunately, the US refused to grant them student visas. So they went to Italy, the “only country allowing Jews to enter without visas.”

In 1940, Walter was arrested in Genoa. Having seen German concentration camps, he was terrified. However, “the Italian camps were nothing like German camps. In comparison, it was like going to a hotel. There was no forced labour in the Italian camps. We could do whatever we wanted during the day, as long as we obeyed the simple rules of being present for role call in the morning ... and in the evening.”

These stories are not just about a few scattered people who helped a few Jews escape the Germans—they are about entire villages, an entire country, that refused to participate in Hitler’s Final Solution. As one of the survivors Bettina interviewed said, “During bad times, there were good people, and without them, he and the other Jews would not have survived.” It Happened in Italy is an inspiring, uplifting read among the hundreds of dark stories about the Holocaust.

See Elizabeth Bettina's website for more stories about Jews in Italy during the Holocaust!

Writers-on-Wednesday: Bruce Atchison

Bruce Atchison is another new Inscriber and a blind writer who agreed to share part of his story here.

How did you become a writer?
I've always loved making up stories. When Mom sent my sister, Diane, and I to bed, I kept her laughing with the silly tales I told. Often times, I would discover that she had drifted off while I enthusiastically babbled on.

At public school, I told stories to a crowd of girls at recess. My vision was too poor for me to play sports with the boys so I naturally gravitated to the only audience at hand. At Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind in Vancouver, 500 miles from my home in the town of Fort Saskatchewan, I entertained myself with my imaginary adventures to help ease the loneliness.

Though I entered a couple of articles in the junior high school newspaper, after being allowed to attend public school again, I didn't do much writing until the late eighties. A newsletter at work called for submissions so I sent in articles about recycling. During the nineties, I wrote music reviews for various electronic music fan magazines.

When I was laid off from my government job in 1995, a counsellor suggested that I should write professionally. After taking a magazine article writing course in the autumn of that year, I began the arduous process of searching for markets for my freelance articles.

I took an online autobiography writing course in 2004 but my manuscript was far too long. Making it into several memoirs seemed a better idea. When a Man Loves a Rabbit (Learning and Living With Bunnies) and Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School) were the result. I'm working on a third and perhaps final memoir called How I Was Razed (And How I Found Authentic Christianity). It should be in print next year.

What inspires you to write?
I've always loved discovering something new and telling people what I've found. There's also something wonderful about crafting an article or story and making it come alive. Though I need to prove to Canada Pension Plan that I'm actively seeking some sort of gainful employment, I feel that writing is a major part of my character.

Researching and learning new things is also something I enjoy, complimenting my writing well. Once I'm done with my memoirs, I want to learn how to write fiction. I love science fiction and certain types of fantasy. Those genres would be fun to explore. In 1997, I began a fantasy story about a paradise populated by humanoid rabbits. I'd like to resurrect that one someday.

Who is your favourite author, and why?
C. S. Lewis is my favourite author. His worlds are the ones I'd love to visit or even live in if I could. I have listened to audio dramatizations of his Narnia stories for years and I never tire of them. If God gave me the gift of writing like any author, I would have no hesitation about who I would emulate. Mr. Lewis' stories are timeless and they point to the ultimate good that will triumph over evil.

I also have The Screwtape Letters in audio. A Bible study group I was involved with a few years ago studied it. It was like walking backwards while holding a gas stove on my head but I learned much from this parody of a senior demon counselling a junior devil. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to chase the magpies and crows away from my yard. I don't like the fowl language they use.

Summer Holidays

Last week found us on holidays, with a job interview in southern Alberta for my husband, a visit to my best friend’s new home, and a weekend at the Catholic Family Life Conference. Now we’re home again, resting, unpacking, and doing laundry. After the heat of most of last week, the cool rain today is nice.

Last year, we made it to a few of the sessions at the Family Life Conference. This year, we arrived on Thursday with most of the other families, and pitched our tent in the shade of some trees. Since we weren’t hungry, we decided to cook supper later. We visited with a few other families and then went to Mass. During Mass, a thunderstorm blew in and rain poured as we dashed back to our tent.

I threw Sunshine in the front of the Jeep to play while I dug through the back of the Jeep for our food. I had the camp kitchen, hamburger helper, pots, and stove ready when I realized there was no fuel. A picture rose in my mind of our little red fuel bottle sitting in the garage—not in the house, with the rest of the camping stuff that I had quickly packed nearly a week ago. As the rain dripped down on me, I looked at our boxes of noodles and canned soups and thought about a weekend without a stove.

Thankfully, our neighbours lent us their stove for that evening, and we quickly heated up some soup. Then I dove into the tent with Sunshine, who promptly freaked out. We haven’t been camping with her since last year, so she didn’t remember the tent. She howled and tried to touch the tent wall and howled again, while I talked to her and touched the tent wall to show her it was okay. Finally, she calmed down and we cuddled, while she stared around her with big eyes, wondering where she had ended up. I worried that she wouldn’t sleep well in the tent, but once she finally drifted off, she didn’t wake up until eight the next morning.

Overall, it was a good weekend. The sessions were excellent, and we had fun running into other friends that we haven’t seen in a while—or since last year’s conference. It was awesome to see so many young, faithful Catholic families there, to be able to share our faith and our love for Christ. Sunshine enjoyed running around, amusing my husband and I with her independence and how far she’d go with no concern about where we were. She also had fun playing with all the kids there, though she’s not into sharing yet.

At one point, a little boy her age had come over to play with her towards the end of Mass. Sunshine was eating applesauce, and the little boy read her board book and played with her ball for a bit. Then Sunshine wanted to join in. My husband and I both began laughing as the boy and Sunshine howled simultaneously at who had the ball. We tried to show them how to play catch, but neither would give up the ball, and it disappeared.

And so begins our summer holidays.