Beth Carpenter Books

In honor of National Dog Day, I'd like to share a few moments from the life of a happy, funny, and loyal companion, Roxy. Roxy likes to play. Always. She's happy to chase a ball, or tug on a rope, or pounce on a laser pointer. She even thinks the reflected sunbeams from her dog-tags are a toy and chases them across the wall. She thinks every action is an invitation to play, including vacuuming the living room, when she attacks the vacuum cleaner and lifts it from the floor.  She enjoys watering the garden ... and shoveling snow ... and she likes to find the hidden icicles and carry them away to hide them.  This one was a little more than she could handle. When we adopted her, we told Roxy she wasn't allowed on  the couch,  but she assured us she was.  Guess who won that battle. Happy National Dog Day. I hope you have someone who bring as much joy into your life  as Roxy does to mine.

E nglish is a rich language, mostly because of our habit of plundering words from other languages all over the world. As a writer, I like reaching for just the right word, the word that conveys my meaning exactly. Sometimes it’s illusive, but often the perfect word is right there, waiting. I love words, playing with them and moving them around. I love collecting interesting words and storing them away for later, like jars of jam.  These are a few of of my favorite words. Not that I necessarily use them often, but I love the pictures they paint. Illumine    http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Sistine-Madonna.html It means to enlighten, to convey the truth, but to me it means so much more. I picture illuminated manuscripts, with rich detail incorporated into the text like the ones at here , at Diana Wilder's blog. To illumine is to bring knowledge that glows with light, like a Raphael painting. Kerfuffle   Can’t you just see the dust flying, ...

Hospitality: the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers .   -dictionary.com Summer is the time for visitors, at least here in Alaska . As we’ve been getting the house ready for guests, I’ve been thinking about hospitality. I’ve been on the receiving end of hospitality countless times, with friends and relatives who share their homes, their meals, and their lives. They’ve been welcoming and generous, but one of my most memorable acts of hospitality was unexpected. Once upon a time, my husband and I were on a camping vacation in Montana. We set up the tent in a state park campground. The woman in the camping spot next door greeted us and said they'd come to pick wild huckleberries. When I mentioned I'd never tasted a huckleberry, her mouth dropped open in surprise. She ran into their camper calling, "They've never tasted huckleberries!"  and returned with a small box full of what looked like giant blueberries. They tasted like blueb...

Have you ever had one of those encounters where someone wounds you with a cutting remark, and you’re tongue-tied? You know they’re wrong, that you should be able to defend yourself, but you can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t make it worse. Then later your think of the perfect comeback? I know I have. One of the perks of writing fiction is the ability to use these moments, to rewrite life so that this time, I come out on top. And in my writing, I can capture other missed opportunities. Photography is a long-time hobby of mine. My father taught me to use a twin-lens reflex camera with manual focus and light settings. It produced a 2 1/4 inch square negative that made developing and printing a breeze. But I missed a lot of shots trying to adjust the focus and aperture/shutter speed on that camera. Besides, the thing was huge, not something you’d carry around casually. Nowadays, the high-quality camera in my cell phone means I can snap a picture whenever something catches my ...

I believe I've mentioned a time or two that I love dogs, both real and fictional.  Some of my earliest memories of reading involve dogs. The dog in my first grade reader was named Tip. I don't remember the names of the children in the story. Old Yeller ,  Savage Sam , White Fang , The Call of the Wild , and Where The Red Fern Grows  were all favorites I read again and again.  I'm still a sucker for a good dog story. Five of the six stories in my  Choices  series feature dogs as significant characters. So do three other stories I've written since, but s o far, none of my dogs has made it to the cover of a book.  Eventually, that has to change, because I'm suffering from cover envy. I look at the beautiful covers like the ones below, and I want one. I have an idea percolating in the back of my mind right now involving a pair of inseparable dogs who will bring two people together who normally wouldn't have given one ano...

Today is  International Kissing Day photo credit: I only dream of you via photopin (license)

Happy Solstice! AKA First Day of Summer Hanging Baskets It's officially summer, and while vacations are great, some of the best things about summer happen right here at home. As of today, we have nineteen hours and twenty-one minutes of daylight in Anchorage, and the other four and a half aren't really dark, so there's plenty of time for summer fun. Here are a few  of my favorite things about summer.  Summer Fruit Wildflowers Duckings, all in a row Reading on the Deck Sun Tea  And Roxy loves summer, too. Hope yours is just as joyful!