Anakalian Whims

Here’s a PREVIEW for the children’s book I illustrated by Todd Dillard.

The preview contains the story of ‘Balloon Head Eddie’ and the poem ‘Stuck.’ There are 24 poems in the full book.

If you would like a copy: ORDER NOW.

Or get a SIGNED COPY.

Weird poems, for weird kids.

The eBook version should be out soon.

At last, the day you have dreamed of since giving birth to that teeny tiny screaming bundle of joy has arrived! The OFFICIAL START to his education! Sure you’ve read to him hours a day for the last three years (or you tried anyway when they weren’t running a Grey’s Anatomy marathon), curbed his television time to keep his precious brain from melting (except for that one time you got pregnant), bought him every educational toy and flash card and Baby Einstein video on the market (just kidding) but TODAY IS THE DAY!

It’s the chance of a lifetime to pour everything you know and everything you wish you knew into someone whose mind-up til this point-is filled primarily with the various body styles of matchbox cars. He will stay seated! He will read his books in an organized fashion! He will put his teeny tiny hand over his heart and…

I finished The Archivist last night (more on that in a forthcoming post) and since beginning it several days ago I’ve found myself in a swoony mood. Swoony, introspective, and quixotic. Who wants to be home, reminded of unfinished housework in such a mood? No one. So this morning when my man people went to do man things-soccer watching and chest bumping at Grammy’s where they are served personalized breakfasts-I took my Ella-girl to Black Forest Coffee to sit quietly and read and journal for a few hours.

Located inside the Half Price Books’ flagship location, Black Forest is one of my favorite Saturday morning spots. Before lunchtime it is fairly empty. The baristas look as half-asleep as you do (the coffee shop maintains reasonable human hours so none of their employees have been at work since 4a.m.), and when you gurgle out something about “latte” and “caffeine” they don’t ask a lot of questions they just grin with understanding…

I’ve come a little late to the Kate Morton party, as with most of the best selling authors in my collection. While I have seen her books around for years, I am naturally suspicious of anything that lands itself on the New York Times best sellers list until I receive a solid recommendation from my own personal bookie.  It’s not that I think I’m better than everybody else who buys books (although that much should be apparent by this point) it’s just that I want to make sure I am purchasing a best selling book of Sloane Crosley caliber, rather than seeing Fifty Shades of Grey for the first time and taking it home because at first glance (which is all I usually give a book before settling down one night to read it and discovering it is actually fancy pornography) it appears to be quixotic.

My bookie, Andi Kay, is Queen of the Listies and well acquainted with how my reading brain functions. Essentially this means I let her slash…

The Dallas Arboretum is listed as one of the top ten places in the country to visit in the spring. Because of the way Texas seasons fall this means February-April are prime Arboretum visiting months; however, in the summer time, they must rely on displays and events to bring out families in the unrelenting heat. Last year they featured the beautiful blown glass sculptures of Dale Chihuly, scattered throughout the pools and rising from the midst of some their most popular areas of the gardens. It was broad scale, I assume well funded, and terribly impressive.

This year the summer draw is the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Flower Village. Since we like flowers and we like Alice in Wonderland and WHO DOESN’T jump at the opportunity to take three children under the age of three out in 100+ degree temperatures my sisters and my best friend and I decided to take our…

NOTE: I use the words “gifted” and “genius” in the place of “extremely sensitive” and “so extremely sensitive that there are not too many of them in this world.” I believe these definitions work better than the results of IQ tests because there is much more to these people than their intellectual overexcitability.

“It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.”
– Albert Einstein

Being born into the one percent of the population that is extremely sensitive not only comes with many great advantages, but also many challenging difficulties.

One of the most challenging difficulties experienced by gifted individuals and geniuses is loneliness.

[ Russell Crowe as John Forbes Nash in “A Beautiful Mind” ]

Psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski identified five areas of “overexcitabilities” in gifted individuals. We experience both the “bright side” and the “dark side” of these overexcitabilities:

Welcome to Pecan Tree Publishing. We are a small, independent publishing house that specializes in authentic, original Southern Stories by Southern Writers.

Because we are focused on quality of content, rather than quantity, our family of Southern authors are hand-picked.

We are delighted to have Southern Writer, Melinda McGuire, as part of our Pecan Tree Publishing family.

Her two novels – Josephine: Red Dirt and Whiskey and Nelson and Cora – The Beginning are currently being re-releasd by Pecan Tree Publishing with new covers and some extras added that will be particularly delightful for her dedicated readers!

Ms. McGuire’s next novel in the Nelson and Cora series, The Journey, will be available in the fall.

We are thrilled to have Southern Mystery Writer, M. A. Ross, added to our writer family at Pecan Street Publishing. M. A. Ross’s debut novel “The Murder at Maginny’s” is set for release in the…