Write badly, delete nothing, utilize technology, and banish self doubt A good friend I highly respect is struggling to write her first book. It will be a memoir of her father on a very important topic. She has a Master’s Degree in the topic, has a ton of material, yet is stuck where I was four years ago before I…

Facebook took down my author page for a single, five-month-old post. The censorship for hate speech is laughable, outrageous and the opposite of what I stand for. For any business, especially authors, online visibility is key to survival. Facebook is the first and most common platform people look for you…

In the U.S, any discussion of healthcare invariably includes the ridiculously high cost of everything, including insurance premiums, hospital bills and many medications. Still, there are some steps you can take to mitigate expenses. I learned to navigate health care the old-fashioned way: because I had to. From preemie twins…

Every author is an “authorpreneur” and CEO of their writing business. Watching a business-themed reality TV show was great training for being ready to pitch my book — I can binge watch Shark Tank. It is one of my go-to shows to watch while I am on the treadmill at the gym or if I need to veg out on the couch. As an author, after watching so many episodes I can recognize a great pitch. It’s more…

Hire a darn good editor before publishing a book. But editors can miss something, or technical errors can occur. It is still the author’s name on the book, not the editor’s. It happened to me. — You, the author, are one-hundred percent responsible for the quality of the book you write. Sure, the job of an editor is to polish your work and make it shine. But it’s your work, not theirs. Your best friend’s mother’s sister who was a high school English teacher falls into…

Two years ago Shelly suddenly stopped responding to emails, phone calls, texts, or private messages on social media. I still ask myself “What did I do wrong?” — Shelly and I met at a writer’s group a year earlier. We clicked. We shared a lot of similar interests. Shelly was smart, ambitious, a whiz at marketing, and outgoing. But …. it was Spring 2016 and two completely opposite candidates vied for the White House. …

If there was a Masters degree for the School of Trial and Error, I would have several. The lessons from my failures have taught me more than additional letters and degrees after my name. Life is rarely a straight line. Sure, one strategy for success is to begin with the…

A pandemic? Worldwide virus? It didn’t seem relevant to me. Sure we had Ebola but that was limited primarily to Africa. And there was SARS, H1N1 and others. But they didn’t affect me personally. They happened elsewhere, to other people, or in crowded conditions where illness can spread fast. …

Sadly, I am learning more all the time, and I am angry. On the evening of October 27, 2018, I received the 2018 Polish Heritage Award from the Polish American Congress of Arizona for my “contribution to the documentation of the suffering inflicted on Polish people during the Holocaust.” This award stands as an honored and public acknowledgment that when I wrote…