Off Topic Thursday: Michigan

I think everyone is proud of where they’re from. I know I am. I was born in Metro Detroit and after living in southern Indiana for four years, I moved back and I’ve been here ever since. I’m very proud of where I’m from and I’d love to give people an idea of Michigan that’s not a bankrupt murder capital. I mean, that’s not wrong, but it’s not the whole truth.

When I was in fourth grade, we focused on Michigan history. We talked about Detroit (day-twa) founding Detroit and the Native American tribes that were common in this area. We visited Lansing, our state capital, and learned about state government. The summer after that year, my mom took my brother and me on a trip around the state that I’ll never forget. She was intrigued about the things I’d learned that summer. She wanted to see the Mackinaw Bridge, the boat wrecks in Lake Superior, the cherries in Traverse City (TRAV-erse), and the waterfalls in the UP (upper peninsula). So we spent a week driving around the state and seeing all these things. So when my brother started fourth grade, he’d already seen it all.

I’ve been lucky to see the city of Detroit change. When I was young, we didn’t go downtown. No one did. Unless you worked there, you never went and if you did work there, you came home right away. When I came back from college, things had started to change. The crime was better controlled and businesses were starting to see the future of the city. There were desirable things to do downtown. We went for fun and if there was a sports game, we’d go early and grab dinner or stay late and have a drink. Detroit is a rare city with four professional sports teams (Lions, and Tigers and Wings, oh my! [and the Pistons]) so there’s often a good reason to visit. I’ll be graduating from a downtown university soon and I got used to being in the city by myself and enjoying my time there.

The metro area is hugely diverse. The city has a majority African-American population and ten minutes west, in Dearborn, we have a majority Arab population. The high-tech automotive industry draws educated people from around the world. My husband’s high school was 40% East Asian. I went to high school in an area that was so heavily Jewish that we got Jewish holidays off in the public school district. Moving to Indiana, I really missed this diversity and never had appreciated it until it was gone.

I’ve made a point to visit more of my home state now that I have the means to. My husband and I had a wonderful camping vacation in the UP a few years ago. We explored old copper mines and had a campsite right on Lake Superior. My parents have a cottage 20 minutes from Lake Huron and we go up a few times a summer. One of my running goals is to do a race in every county of the Lower Peninsula and I’m making steady progress (though it will take some time!). As much as we’re known for Detroit, a lot of the state is rural and forested. There are a lot of farms and deer hunting is a major past time in the fall.

So I hope I can give some of you a slightly different look at Michigan. We’re not all Eminem and only a small part of our state still doesn’t have clean drinking water (Flint Water Crisis). Not all our cities are bankrupt (just the biggest one) and it’s not always cold. I love my state and every terrible and beautiful inch of it. I bet your hometown is great, too, but I wouldn’t trade Michigan for anything.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

WWW Wednesday, 28-November-2018

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived here on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Note: For users of Blogspot blogs, I’m unable to comment on your posts as a WordPress blogger unless you’ve enabled Name/URL comments. This is a known WordPress/Blogspot issue. Please consider enabling this to participate more fully in the community. 

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Currently reading: I’m really focusing on The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl because I want to wrap it up. It’s been dragging forever and I’m really wishing it would just end.
I hoped to ignore SportsBall on Thanksgiving by reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson on my phone but the couch was so comfortable that I just fell asleep and didn’t get through much. I’m trying not to see this as time wasted because it was a very good nap.
I’m making progress on The Gilded Hour by Sara Donati as my husband has been very busy. When I’m home alone, I put this one while I do chores and I get through over an hour a day doing that. It’s a nice way to feel like there’s someone at home with me and still be an introvert.
It’s slower going on People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks since my class is over and I’m not driving to school every week. I’m still getting a reasonable amount of time in the car, but this will slow down a bit now that I have shorter jaunts in the car.

Recently finished: Nothing! It’s a bit of a slow week with Thanksgiving in the middle. I have a plane trip coming up and I’m hopeful I can get some more reading in while I’m in the air.

Reading Next: I still plan to tackle Before the Fall by Noah Hawley but I’m still unsure of what format to use. I can get an ebook, audiobook on CD, or physical book. I might wait for the CD and let myself enjoy some books off my shelf before the holidays. TBD but for sure reading this one!

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Leave a comment with your link and a comment (if you’re so inclined). Take a look at the other participant links in the comments and look at what others are reading.

Have any opinions on these choices?

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Write-Ins When You’re Not Doing NaNo

I was so excited to be back to my monthly writers’ group. This month, the group merges with the local NaNo group and participates in a Write-In. As I’m not doing NaNo (and using grad school as an excuse one last time), I wasn’t exactly ‘on task’ at this one. I used the first half hour to write yesterday’s blog post. But once that was finished, I had to find another way to entertain myself.

A week before, I’d had a line come to me. I’m still unsure if it’s a novel or a short story, but I wrote it down either way. I decided to use a Word War to see where it took me.

I got about 2000 words into this story. The way it’s going now, it’s a short story. It could turn into something longer, but I think I’ll start here. It was really nice to write again. I missed feeling like I’m creating something out of thin air; like I’m meeting someone for the first time as I write from their mouth.

I want to get back into doing this. More on that later this week. For now, I just wanted to report on a successful one day of NaNo. I even won a Word War. I still got it.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Book Club Reflection: Not Me by Michael Lavigne

I’m always glad to go to a book club meeting and enjoy what my fellow readers have to say about a book I disliked. It’s usually eye-opening and sometimes changes my opinion of the book. I can’t say my mind has been swayed this time, but I have a bit more of an appreciation for the book now.

We started off with a question that I hadn’t thought to ask. When does this book take place? With each year, we have fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors around. We thought this book may be set a few years back, possibly 2000 or 2001. There was a Starbucks and Michael had a flip phone, so it seemed somewhat modern, but still a little dated.

It takes Michael the entirety of the book to start coming to terms with his father’s history and process the story in the journal. He’s a very self-absorbed character. At first, he doesn’t want to learn about his father. The distanced relationship the two have is comfortable for Michael, and he doesn’t want to leave it. He has a similar distance with his son, Josh. The relationship seemed to emphasize how self-centered Michael was. Maybe Heshel’s focus on his philanthropic endeavors kept his focus away from his son. Michael may have assumed such a relationship was normal and formed a similar one with his son. The first time we really see Michael do something for someone else is when he kills Karen and puts her out of her pain.

I wasn’t the only reader who questioned I the journals were factual. Because they’re written in a third-person, novel-like format, it seemed plausible that we’d get to the end of the book and Michael would discover they were from his father’s imagination. He finally believed it was all real when he read his mother’s letter. Writing in a third-person voice may have helped Heshel distance himself from the terrors he witnessed and committed.

We talked a lot about why Heshel made the change he did. He seemed to have a ‘come to God’ moment when he was in the hospital, realizing what he’d done to Moskovitz and feeling responsible for all the other crimes he’d committed. We questioned if he was a con artist his whole life, deceiving others to think he was a great, big-hearted man when his motivation was to make amends for his terrible actions. He felt that his daughter’s death was some form of retribution for his actions earlier. He was given accolades for his actions, but his motivation was far from honorable.

One of the loose ends that bugged us the most was Israel Rosenheim. We assumed he was the one who left the journals for Michael to read, assuming he’s real. We also guessed that Israel was the one visiting Heshel in the nursing home. This would have meant that Israel was in Florida so we wondered why Michael wouldn’t look for him.

This book had a lot of other loose ends. We guessed that Israel and Heshel had a long relationship because of references to money that had been paid to some unknown source. We guessed this was school payments of some sort. The relationship with April was a big question mark at the end. The relationship with Michael seemed superfluous. She seemed to be there just for Michael to find out his father brought orphans over from Europe. April being one of them was a bit too ‘clean,’ especially the way we found out. We all wished that April had been the one to leave the journals. That would have given us a lot more closure.

I didn’t leave this meeting liking the book anymore. I understood why some others may have liked it a lot, but it still wasn’t a book for me. We’re not meeting in December so it will be January when we have another one of these great talks.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Happy Thanksgiving!

In lieu of a post today, I’d like to wish all my American readers a happy Thanksgiving! I’ll be Turkey Trotting this morning and stuffing my face with stuffing and pie (the best parts of Thanksgiving) tonight.

Have a safe and happy holiday, I’ll be back next week.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

WWW Wednesday, 21-November-2018

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived here on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Note: For users of Blogspot blogs, I’m unable to comment on your posts as a WordPress blogger unless you’ve enabled Name/URL comments. This is a known WordPress/Blogspot issue. Please consider enabling this to participate more fully in the community. 

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Currently reading: I made small progress with The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl and I think I’ll devote a little more time to it, but I might put it aside again soon. Honestly, it’s failing to grasp me and I can tell already that this will be a Two or Three Star book for me. It’s just not going anywhere.
I really dropped off my reading of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson after moving so far with it last week. I’ve had busy lunches at work and not a lot of time outside to read it. I have to finish by the end of the year and I know I’ll make that though it may be a bit closer than I’d anticipated.
I’m already a third of the way through The Gilded Hour by Sara Donati. It’s hard not to think that I could have listened to a normal-length book in this same time. I’ll be on this one for a while, to be sure.
I’m enjoying People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks though I no longer think it will be my 1600s book for When Are You Reading? The timeline isn’t firmly set then and I want to get a book that better fits the period.

Recently finished: I wrapped up The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway late last week. I’m not a bit fan of short story collections but I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would. Nick is very much like Hemingway, as are many of his characters, but I enjoyed reading about his time in Northern Michigan. I posted a review Monday so please check that out for more opinions. I gave it Three out of Five Stars.

I posted a review of Old School by Tobias Wolff last week. I liked this one a lot and it reminded me of some other books I’ve read and enjoyed before. I gave it Four out of Five Stars.

Reading Next: I have a bit of freedom here at the end of the year as my book clubs take time off for us to be with our families. I’ll probably start on the January book to get it out of the way. Our next one is Before the Fall by Noah Hawley. As is my preferred method of reading, I know nothing about this one and I’ll just hope for the best.

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Leave a comment with your link and a comment (if you’re so inclined). Take a look at the other participant links in the comments and look at what others are reading.

Have any opinions on these choices?

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

The Pitfalls of Not Reading Book Summaries

I’ve fallen victim to my own self-imposed ignorance. So I can’t be mad about it. But I kind of am.

I make a point of not reading book summaries, be it a Goodreads summary, a review, or even the blurb on the back of the book. I found that far too often, these give away major plot points and sometimes those points come very late in the book and lose their impact. So I’ve given up the practice and prefer recommendations with no summary or a one-sentence recap.

However, it’s gotten me in trouble this time. I’m trying to find a book to wrap up the When Are You Reading? Challenge where I have a gaping hold in the 1600s. I’d looked up a Goodreads list for books set in the 1600s and picked one. I skimmed the summary and saw a date from the 1600s so I figured I was golden and started listening to the audiobook.

But I was wrong. The book is set in the late 1990s with flashbacks to earlier periods (but nothing long or consistent) chronicling a book that existed through the 1600s. I’m guessing I’ll get to that point soon. I allow myself some leeway when assigning a time period to a book, but I feel I’m pushing it way too far to count this one as the 1600s.

I found a Shakespeare play that was written in the 1600s to read. I’ll finish the book (it’s People of the Book, by the way) but I need something else to fill the time period. I’m determined to finish this year and I’m so close I can taste it!

Am I alone in skipping book blurbs? Has it ever landed anyone else in trouble? Let me know of any good books set in the 1600s you make know of!

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Book Review: The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway (3/5)

I find it hard to review short story collections but I’ll do my best here. In this case, we have a consistent character, Nick Adams, who is more or less Hemingway himself. I’ve always been interested in Adams because his stories are set in Northern Michigan where my parents have a summer home. I love the area though I know it’s very different from Hemingway’s time.

Cover image via Goodreads

The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway

Other books by Hemingway reviewed on this blog:

The Sun Also Rises (3/5)

Summary from Goodreads:

The famous Nick Adams stories show a memorable character growing from child to adolescent to soldier, veteran, writer, and parent – a sequence closely paralleling the events of Hemingway’s life.”But,” as Philip Young writes in the preface, “Hemingway naturally intended his stories to be understood and enjoyed without regard for such considerations – as they have been for a long time.”

From what I know of Hemingway, these stories paralleled his life more than just a bit. At least, in the locations, hobbies, and stages of life if not in the details. I’m not sure if he ever escaped from the game board with his sister or saw an Indian woman give birth. But he lived in those places and knew about those things. It’s no coincidence Nick went to Europe, fought in the war, and had a son.

Nick is believable because he is so much like Hemingway. He’s very close to nature and seems to understand the land in a way few people do anymore. He often comes off as closed off, someone who enjoys being alone more than he enjoys being with people. When he is with people, he judges them a lot and speculates about their lives and motivations while showing little interest in them. He’s an observer and I think it’s safe to say Hemingway would have been the same way. To write about people the way he does, he had to watch them closely.

There were very few repeat characters in the stories. A few showed up, like his friend George. My favorite was his sister, Littless, from The Last Good Country. She was a sweet girl, and very dedicated to her older brother. I struggled to guess their ages, but I assume he was about 16-18 and she was around 14. I loved the dynamic between the two of them and it made me wish I had an older brother. Though who knows if relationships like those are common.

Ernest Hemingway
Image via the Nobel Prize website

I didn’t relate to the characters, cut I could relate to the setting in this story. I love the woods of Northern Michigan. Even though a lot of it is now populated, one of my favorite things is riding my bike up there through the national forest. It gives me peace in much the same way Nick felt when he was fishing the rivers. Being alone in nature is soothing and I could relate to Nick’s peace.

My favorite story was The Last Good Country. It was the longest, and I think that spoke to my preference for the novel. However, I think the other point of view could have been reduced if not cut. Being with Nick and Littless in the forest, having another person there that emphasized how comfortable Nick was alone in nature, was really fun and I enjoyed hearing it.

My least favorite story was The Way You’ll Never Be. I guess I didn’t get the point of this story. Maybe I was in heavy traffic and missed an important point. Either way, I don’t enjoy the military stories as much as I like the ones set back home or in Europe after the war. This one seemed to be too much of a satire for my tastes. I know Hemingway had a lot to say about war, the point of it, and the humanlessness of it. I just didn’t get much of it out of this story.

The audiobook I listened to was narrated by Stacy Keach. I had mixed feelings about his narration. I thought he had a good voice to give to Nick and his portrayal of other characters was good. They were different enough and the accents were present without being distracting. However, his speed and volume changed too much for me. Listening in my car, I have to frequently turn up the volume when I’m on the highway and when I get off. However, with Keach I had to turn it up for certain paragraphs or even the end of emotional sentences.

A lot of Nick’s stories were about man and nature. As much as Nick was a peace in nature, he didn’t belong there. He manipulated nature to meet his needs but he always had to return to civilization. It was a place to hide or escape, but he couldn’t live there. He brought things that couldn’t be replenished and he always went home in the end. They were quick adventures when he needed a rush, but they were never going to be a permanent move.

Writer’s Takeaway: Making a character like yourself is a good way to make him believable. Hemingway could pour his feelings and reactions into Nick and that must have made him easy to write. But it doesn’t make him interesting to read. Nick was the least interesting part of his stories to me (with the exception of Fathers and Sons). It did make for a good way to explore secondary characters, though.

Overall, enjoyable in parts, but not an overall winner. Three out of Five stars.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Related Posts:
Nature Boy- “The Nick Adams Stories” by Ernest Hemingway | Such a Book Nerd
#74: The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway | 1 Year, 100 Books
Unfinished Hemingway “The Last Good Country” and “Crossing the Mississippi” | SandersStuff
Hemingway Fix #4: The End of Something | From Offshore

Book Review: Old School by Tobias Wolff (4/5)

Here’s yet another example of a book club book I never would have picked up but because someone else picked it, I read it and enjoyed it. If you don’t have a group that pushes your reading, I really recommend it.

Cover image via Goodreads

Old School by Tobias Wolff

Summary from Goodreads:

The protagonist of Tobias Wolff’s shrewdly—and at times devastatingly—observed first novel is a boy at an elite prep school in 1960. He is an outsider who has learned to mimic the negligent manner of his more privileged classmates. Like many of them, he wants more than anything on earth to become a writer. But to do that he must first learn to tell the truth about himself.

The agency of revelation is the school literary contest, whose winner will be awarded an audience with the most legendary writer of his time. As the fever of competition infects the boy and his classmates, fraying alliances, exposing weaknesses, Old School explores the ensuing deceptions and betrayals with an unblinking eye and a bottomless store of empathy. The result is further evidence that Wolff is an authentic American master.

I was instantly reminded of a favorite of mine, A Separate Peace so I started off inclined to like this book. I liked the setting and the premise. I enjoyed how being a good writer made a boy popular the same way being a star athlete can. The idea that intellect was celebrated made me happy. I’m contemplating sending potential future children to a New England boarding school. I’ll bet this doesn’t last long.

I felt the protagonist was credible. I could understand how he wanted to prove himself and show that he could do well and didn’t need to be pitied as a scholarship recipient. I almost understood his decision to be untruthful. Almost. I wouldn’t have gone to such extremes, but I understood it. His procrastination bothered me, but I know people who would have done the same thing.

I liked the narrator. Most of the other boys seemed to run together but the narrator, because we were in his head, I understood and liked. He was smart and he had his priorities in the right places. Well, most of the time. With one major exception, he was a good student and stayed out of trouble. He admired the great writing and aspired to get through learning and school. That’s pretty admirable. He also learned some hard lessons along the way about people he idolized and I think that must have been very humbling.

I had flashbacks to the high school literary magazine when I was reading the scenes where the boys talked about their own. I remember certain people appearing more than others, letting someone’s piece in because they were a Senior and the sense of entitlement that came with being an editor. I felt these were hit spot on.

Tobias Wolff
Image via the Paris Review

I thought the scenes with Ayn Rand were pretty great. The way she was characterized and the take-aways the narrator had from the encounter were very realistic of meeting one’s heroes. I loved how Wolff characterized her (and really shared an opinion!). I’ve never read her books but I’m familiar with the movement she was a part of and how polarizing they could be.

Spoilers here so skip this if you don’t want the ending ruined. I didn’t like that the narrator plagiarized, but I disliked it more when he ran away to New York. It seemed like he was so afraid of returning home to a father we know little about. I didn’t understand why he didn’t feel he could face his father except that he didn’t want to disappoint him. It didn’t feel like strong enough motivation to run away. This character had been so level-headed leading up to this point and the change seemed too much and too sudden.

The narrator is always searching for greatness. At first, in others. He wants to see Ayn Rand as great and Hemingway. Then he wants to be great himself. He’s desperate for achievement and recognition. And it bites him hard. In the end, he humbles himself but is able to achieve something great (or so it’s implied). Greatness is never easy. It was good that the narrator had to struggle to see that.

Writer’s Takeaway: I struggled in my historical fiction book with bringing in real-life figures. I ultimately decided not to but I respect how Wolff did it in this book. Giving life to Frost, Rand, and Hemingway must have been a challenge. You want to be true to who they were but also treat them as a character. That balance is what led me away for it but I found this to be a good example of how to do it well.

A fun, quick read and a work showing a love of literature. Four out of Five stars.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Related Posts:
Old School, by Tobias Wolff | KevinfromCanada
Old School, by Tobias Wolff | Philo on Books
Old School –  Tobias Wolff | Lizzie’s Literary Life
Tobias Wolff’s Old School: Truth, Tangent, and Return | Take Away the Takeaway
Tobias Wolf | Don’t Need a Diagram

WWW Wednesday, 14-November-2018

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived here on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Note: For users of Blogspot blogs, I’m unable to comment on your posts as a WordPress blogger unless you’ve enabled Name/URL comments. This is a known WordPress/Blogspot issue. Please consider enabling this to participate more fully in the community. 

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Currently reading: I started The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl again! I’m excited to get back to it and finish this one so I can start on some new books.
I’ve made decent progress on Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. I’m going to have to watch the Muppet version of this when I’m done. I wonder how much they kept the same.
I was proud of how much of The Gilded Hour by Sara Donati I’ve listened to but then I was reminded that it’s 31 hours long and I’ll be listening to this for the better part of a month. I’m in for the long haul.
I’ve enjoyed some of The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway more than others. Some are so short I’m not sure what I’m supposed to get out of them. I’m not sure how much Hemingway meant for them to be put together in a collection. They seem to be in chronological order which I don’t think is how they were written. Maybe they’d make more sense in another order.

Recently finished: I finished Old School by Tobias Wolff on Sunday as I recovered from a half marathon. I needed to sit, haha. It was a nice, short book. I was reminded of A Separate Peace which is a favorite of mine so it was almost nostalgic.

I was able to post two reviews, though. Monday I posted about Not Me by Michael Lavigne. The book wasn’t a favorite and the ending upset me so I rated it Three out of Five stars.
I also reviewed That Night by Chevy Stevens. This one was the complete opposite. It grabbed me from the beginning and kept me listening as often as I could. I gave it Five out of Five Stars.

Reading Next: I’ve got to get through one more book to finish my When Are You Reading? Challenge. I picked People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. I read another Brooks book for this time period last year as well (1600s) and it’s getting hard to find some. I may have to re-define my time periods going forward to make it a bit easier! I’ll be starting this when I finish Hemingway.

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Leave a comment with your link and a comment (if you’re so inclined). Take a look at the other participant links in the comments and look at what others are reading.

Have any opinions on these choices?

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!