Family columnists
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Communication skills
“Lack of communication leaves fear and doubt.” ~Kellan Lutz Lately I’ve been thinking about communication — and what makes good communication. I’m an over-communicator by nature and by trade. After college, I had publishing jobs that required a lot of meetings and follow-up phone calls. Later, as a newspaper columnist, my career was all about talking to people in print. (Early in my marriage, one of my in-laws told me I “talk too much.”) But after years of living among both chatterboxes and quiet people, I’m much more comfortable with the chatterboxes. While some folks believe it’s safer to say less — or nothing — silence doesn’t help build relationships.…
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Writing Home: My annual shameless plug
“A book has no unwanted calories and you don’t have to worry about sizes as long as the subject matter appeals to the recipient.” ~Sue Grafton If there’s a reader on your gift list, I’d be honored if you’d consider my essay collection ($16.95) this Christmas. The 93 previously published pieces in Writing Home first appeared in a variety of national magazines and newspapers, including Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion, Reader’s Digest, Country Gardens, and The Christian Science Monitor. These essays were written during the years I worked from home while raising my son. The late Detroit News columnist, George Cantor, wrote about the book after spending a day visiting my favorite hometown haunts with…
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The family columnist
“We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.” ~Stacia Tauscher Using our kids as fodder for Facebook posts, blog posts, or newspaper columns is hardly new. But it was a thought-provoking exercise for me to revisit my own column-writing days in a “Home Forum” essay for The Christian Science Monitor. How much ink is appropriate to give our kids? Are we bragging or exploiting? How can we avoid overstepping personal boundaries or violating our children’s privacy? Please click here to read the essay. –CL
