Rus VanWestervelt
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I haven’t blogged in so long. And certainly not like I used to. Years ago, my posts were filled with images and quotes, and I was so focused on followers and SEO and stats and – well, you get the picture. Keeping that up became so stifling. Every post was a production. Have I just…
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I just finished reading The Witch Of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare, first published in 1958. My goodness, did this book get me thinking about what it means to live authentically. For, I don’t how many years, the idea of living “authentically” has permeated our social streams and, before that, our print stories and…
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Each year, I read between 45 and 65 books by a variety of authors in multiple genres. Over a 43-year span, I have read most of Stephen King’s novels, but not in order, and certainly not in a space where I picked up on all of the nuances and threads running through his books. For…
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Earlier today, I looked through my old posts from September months, searching for my 9/11 story. I thought it might be a good time to republish it, simply because my students that I teach now in 2023 weren’t even born when planes crashed into our buildings. I think it’s a lot like Pearl Harbor or…
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Last month, I announced that I will be writing the history of Loch Raven Reservoir, with the assistance of the Historical Society of Baltimore County. The book will be written as a story of the watershed area, its own memoir that began in the mid 1850’s and continues today. In making sure that I capture…
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For the past month, I have been reading, writing, and reflecting on what we – more selfishly, I – can do about the increasing crises and tensions in America. I posed this question in my May 8th blog titled, “How Do We Act In This American Crisis?“: What am I already doing naturally, on a…
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In late July of 1973, my dad woke me gently from my sleep just after 4 a.m., and immediately I sprung from my bed, slipping on my kid-sized khakis and a pair of fish-head sneakers before heading downstairs to the kitchen. There, he had just finished stirring some instant coffee in my Snoopy mug. The…
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I’m spending my day in another county with my Speech and Debate team, as they take on a number of other schools in our local league. There are a few things that demand my full attention as their coach during the day, especially in the morning and between rounds, but for the most part, I…
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As a teacher, I have been using my Summer time to do a great deal of reading and research. The fiction works I have read are a mix of contemporary and those written in the 19th and 20th centuries – from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to…
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In 2011, I finished writing, and published, my first novel. Actually, it was my second novel-length manuscript; the first one, Night Terrors, has still yet to see any public light. That was way back in 1992 when I finished that one. 30 years ago! As you can imagine, my writing style has evolved quite a…
