JanDunlap.com

With only two months left before the second Bob White Birder Murder is released, I'm still making the rounds talking about "The Boreal Owl Murder," my debut of the series. Recently, I spent an evening with a local book club, chatting about the writing process and the characters in the series. Our hostess for the evening, Mary Thomas, really set the stage for our conversation by decorating her home with owls, not to mention our owl-themed entree for dinner. It was a hoot!! ...more...

Being the sentimental packrat that I am, I keep all sorts of memorabilia from when my kids were little. That means, among other things, I have home-made Father’s Day cards sitting in a drawer from the late 1980s. And while these days, my children present my husband with gift certificates, DVDs, or his favorite dessert on Father’s Day – all of which please him very much – these thoughtful gifts, in my book, still take a back seat to those childhood mementos when it comes to pure nostalgia.

I found one of those very special Father’s Day tokens just the other day when I was digging through a drawer looking for a spring tablecloth. It was a handmade place mat that my five-year-old son had presented to his dad back in ...more...

I always get a laugh from bloopers – the mistakes people make in using the English language. And, believe me, as a college English teacher, I see plenty of them every term in my students’ papers. Here’s a short collection of them from this past school year for your own reading enjoyment.

Blooper: “Every year on The Day of the Dead, families go to cemeteries to visit their diseased relatives.”

My comment on the student’s paper: I think you mean ‘deceased’ relatives. Typically, ‘diseased’ relatives are either in the hospital, a nursing facility, or at home. Cemetaries are places you bury bodies, not a place to host get-well parties. That would be pretty depressing for the patient, don’t you think? ‘Hey, Uncle Stu, let’s get everyone together at the local graveyard to ...more...