Words from the Heart

Julia Asel Thomas is our guest blogger today.  She is the author of a new book, Loving the Missing Link , a chronicle of a young girl from a small town, which is part of the WOW blog tour .  Like her character, Julia is also a small town girl.   Small towns are interesting and wonderful places.  Unlike the big cities, in a small town everyone knows everyone.  There are certain expectations and certain "ways" of doing things. In small towns, many teenagers can't wait to get away.  Often, they resort to running away from what they see as an oppressive life to marry.  Once in the "real" world, though, things change. Julia writes today about teen marriage - a topic of some concern in both small towns and big cities.  I believe you will find her words filled with wisdom. ~~~~ Let me start by saying that I would never advise two teenagers to get married. It is a risky business starting out together with so few resources and so little ex...

I don't often review books, mainly because I think people should read books and decide whether they are relevant to them rather than taking the word of someone else.  However, I am making an exception with Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions, an anthology of stories by women from a wide and diverse range of religious communities.  I learned of this book through Women on Writing , who are sponsoring the Beyond Belief Blog Tour. The first thing that hit me was the use of the word extreme.  What, I thought, was an "extreme" religion?  As an interfaith minister, I had some ideas, but like most judgements, they were my own personal feelings.  So, I delved into the introduction to the book written by the editors, Susan Tive and Cami Ostman.   Susan and Cami tell the readers in their introduction about how "women living life inside extreme religions have much in common despite their differences of practice and belief." ...

Today, I am pleased to have as a guest blogger, Elaine Drennon Little, who is taking part in a Women on Writing (WOW) Blog Tour.  Elaine is a writer and educator.  She writes as passionately as she teaches.  Her new book, A Southern Place , tells the story of a young woman and her search for connections and her fight for life. But, Elaine isn't writing about her book, exactly.  Instead, she is sharing her thoughts on Creative Arts Programs in Schools as an educator, as well as a writer. Welcome, Elaine! The Arts Education Network has the following sentence at the top of their website: Learning and participation in music, dance, theater, and the visual arts are vital to the development of our children and our communities. This topic is paramount to me as an educator, but also as a student of the arts.    I was one of those nerdy kids who was always the last chosen for sports teams; I often feigned illness on “field day.” However, my chorus...