August 31, 1966 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky where you have to make up stories to have something happen in our little town. Well, that’s not always true. There was all that stuff that happened last year. Some of it was good. A lot of it not good at all. I’d tell you all about it but it …
The best substitute for experience is being sixteen. (Raymond Duncan) Ahh, do you remember those special birthdays when you were a kid? Some birthdays just burn into your memory. I remember thirteen because I thought finally, I was a teenager. Twelve was such a boring number. Like being on the verge of something wonderful that you could almost glimpse up …
I write Christian fiction. For years I wrote for the general market with varying degrees of success. I remember when I first started noticing Christian fiction books in stores. They were mostly in Christian bookstores. The majority of the books were nonfiction, but then a shelf or two or maybe a rack would have novels. I wondered if that was …
“What is a kiss? Why this, as some approve: The sure sweet cement, glue, and lime of love.” (Robert Herrick) Romance – what would life be without it? And what would romance be without a kiss? Here’s some rules for kissing from the early nineteen hundreds with a reason for a smile when you read to the end of the …
One in eight women have breast cancer. A year ago in August I found out I was that one in eight women as I went for a biopsy and got the bad news that I had breast cancer. Since that time, I’ve talked to so many women who have had a similar diagnosis or whose mother or sister has. The …
August 16, 1966 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. School starts tomorrow. Dad says I should be excited. He even preached on being excited about learning on Sunday. Of course, he was talking about learning from the Bible or learning more about Jesus. Not school. Maybe I used to get excited about starting school. Back when I was just …
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me.” That’s an old adage that I’m sure you’ve heard many times. You may had said it yourself or told your kids to say it when you were trying to get them past some hurtful words aimed at them at school or on the playground. I doubt …
Don’t you just love a great love story? You all know how much I enjoy how you share your stories with me when I have a contest of some kind. Your stories make me the big winner in those contests. (I’ll be having a birthday contest soon.) I enjoy hearing from you in between contests too and I’m always glad …
August 10, 1966 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Here we are about two weeks away from starting school. Scary! Summer is sliding away into the shadows. My trip with Wes last week was about the only fun thing I’ve done this summer. Well, I did finish writing Bailey’s Bug. Guess that was something. I even got it all …
“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air, that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.” (Robert Louis Stevenson) Last week I shared with you that I’d been on vacation to Edisto Beach in South Carolina. …