Category: books

The Calm after the Storm

Many of us have been through a couple weeks of unusually cold weather; in many cases the frigid temps, snow, and ice have disrupted travel plans. I was supposed to go on a mini retreat and visit a friend last week, but my flights were cancelled and I will have to take that trip later.

In the meantime, I have mostly stayed inside and taken advantage of the quiet time at home. There has a been a lot a reading, especially memoir, and every few days I make a pot of soup in my sturdy red Dutch oven. These soups are mainly vegetable-based; I take a look in the refrigerator or at the counter, and figure out what I’d like to make. Nothing is better than homemade soup on a cold winter day. One of my favorites is a green soup – sounds like it would taste odd because it has a lot of spinach, but I love it.

I have a project that I am excited about, one that taps into my admiration and appreciation for Toni Morrison, one of the best writers I have read. She passed away in 2019, but she left an impressive legacy as a writer and an editor. February 18th is her birthdate and in Ohio, there is a phenomenal project to honor her for a year, between February 2026 and February 2027. Beloved: Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison is designed and led by Literary Cleveland in partnership with Ohio Humanities, with collaboration from the Ohioana Library Association and the Toni Morrison Society. Beloved: Ohio Celebrates Morrison is a statewide celebration honoring the life, literature, and legacy of Toni Morrison and there are numerous gatherings and events planned over the year-long celebration. You can learn more at ohiocelebratestonimorrison.org. 

I submitted a proposal which was accepted and in March 2026 I will launch Beloved: A Communal Exploration of Toni Morrison’s Award-winning Novel. This event will consist of several online sessions to meet and discuss this amazing novel. Beloved is a masterpiece and I hope to share it with a group of readers who love to tackle challenging yet beautifully written prose. It is not necessary that you have already read the book, and we will take our time with the reading so we can slow down, understand the story, take in the language, and share an experience of reading this book in community.

I’ll be collaborating with Moira Baker, Ph.D., and we intend for this book discussion to be a space where we can learn from the novel and each other. The response to this project has been positive, spaces have filled quickly, but if you are interested in learning more, please reach out to me here. 

February might be a short month but there are other gatherings I am looking forward to, such as jazz concerts and a dance performance. This cold weather lends itself to settling inside, but I don’t mind so much since I am in a season of streamlining, taking inventory of some of my possessions and considering if it is time to donate or give away items. This is going to be a big year, and I want to make sure I have made space for what is to come next.

I hope you are safe and warm wherever you are reading this. One more thing – if life is becoming to be too chaotic and stressful, take a step back and consider the one small thing you can do to relieve some of the apprehension so many of us are feeling. One small thing, that is all. If you are led to do something bigger, that is something you can discern for yourself. And rest, please make sure you are getting your rest.

In peace,

Ramona 

Books I Read in 2025

Whenever I travel, if there is time, one of my favorite things to do is to find an independent bookstore and explore the stacks to find what is new. This year, I read my way through dozens of books, having set specific goals for novels, memoir, and other nonfiction. Sometimes I am reading for information, hence the significant number of nonfiction books that I read in a year. At other times, I want a good story and as a writer, I am also drawn in by elements such as structure, pacing, and craft, or how the story is told.

Here are some of the books I read, by category, that you might want to take a look at:

Memoir:

Whiskey Tender by Deborah Jackson Taffa

This book is about a young Native American woman and her life both on and off the reservation. It has personal stories and is well researched such that I came away knowing more about her as a person, her culture, and aspects of being Native American in this country of which I was unaware.

Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille T. Dungy

Dungy is a poet, so her descriptions of establishing a garden in Colorado come to life with vivid descriptions of her garden and the wildlife that lives there. She also provides context about the history of Black people and their connection to the land.

Just As I Am by Cicely Tyson

I remember going to see Ms. Tyson as a college student; she was a guest speaker at a nearby college. When she walked onto the stage, I will never forget the image – posture impeccable, smile beaming, and she was a wearing winter white outfit which was elegant against her dark brown skin. This was not that long after the TV miniseries Roots mesmerized this nation over the course of several days. I wanted to learn more about her life, career, and how she became the accomplished actress that she was. This memoir did not disappoint.

Other Nonfiction:

How to Retire by Christine Benz

Benz shares practical and actionable advice on how to plan for and navigate a happier retirement.

Less is Liberation – Finding Freedom from a Life of Overwhelm by Christine Platt

Platt describes her healing journey as she understands the role of overwhelm in making her ill. She stresses the importance of being intentional in the choices we make because there are consequences for everything we acquire and take on as obligations.

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jared Lanier

This book explains the negative impact of social media on individuals and society. I deleted one account last year, but I believe that particularly if you have children or young adults who are active on social media you should read this so you can understand how it is affecting them.

Novel:

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

Despite the efforts of the community to fight, an American oil corporation causes lasting and extensive damage as a result of its greed and lack of concern that drilling has on an African village. 

The Great Mann by Kyra Davis Lurie

This novel, set in a thriving Black community in Los Angeles, has been likened to a retelling of The Great Gatsby. 

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

A white writer creates a new identity for herself after stealing the soon-to-be published manuscript of a Chinese American writer that has been very successful.

I love a good book recommendation, let me know what you enjoyed reading last year. Happy reading in 2026!

Quiet Time

I am just back from a week in New Hampshire with family and now I enter the quieter portion of the summer. The weather was great, sunny days with the kind of humidity that seems mild since I grew up in Cincinnati. We baked make-your-own pizzas in the backyard, visited Klemm’s Bakery for pastries, Hayward’s Homemade Ice Cream twice, and drove up to Cape Elizabeth, Maine for seafood and a stop at a nearby lighthouse. Being together was the best part, and I shared photos with those who could not join us. The only hiccups were flight delays, supposedly caused by “fog” in Boston. When I checked with my family in the area and spoke with a woman waiting for her daughter, everyone said there was no fog on a sunny midafternoon that they could see, but I knew the plane would leave when they said it could, so I read while waiting. I’m currently reading “How Beautiful We Were” by Imbolo Mbue, a novel about how a village in Africa is affected by the American oil company that started production and left the people and their land ravaged by illness and neglect. They resist for years, fighting to restore their homeland. I have not finished it, but there are passages so beautifully written that at times I need to put the novel down and just absorb the language and message.

I meant to write about letter writing, which many of us don’t do as much because it has been replaced with the quick text or social media update. I love writing notes and often will send a card with a letter or an article to folks, just to let them know that I am thinking of them. I don’t always get a letter back, but that is not the point for me—I love the slowing down that letter writing requires.

Last week, I did get some sad news—a friend and mentor, Ellen Doyle, OSU, passed away after living with an illness that she had been dealing with for over two years. Ellen often updated her friends, letting us know of her travels, treatments options, and speaking candidly about the gravity of her illness. I was surprised when I got word of her passing, but she had been letting us walk with her all along, preparing us for what she knew could happen.

Ellen wrote a wonderful memoir, “Dear Uncle Stanley”, which shares letters her uncle wrote during her young adulthood; she also wrote to him over those years. She was discerning and coming to understand her call to spiritual life as a sister in a religious community, and he was an older priest, speaking honestly with her about life and its challenges. I appreciated her love of letter writing and how letters are not just welcome in the moment, they also serve as a record of a moment in time. Mbue’s novel also uses letters between those in the village and a friend in the States to move the story along. There are many epistolary novels and memoirs, and I love how a letter can give an intimate portrayal of a person’s mind and heart. Ellen lived a rich and full life, and I know her spirit is at rest. That doesn’t mean I won’t miss her, but I am grateful to have known her for over 50 years.

In this quieter season, I will make a point to send a card or a letter to more people. It is more permanent than a text, even if the recipient does not hold on to it for decades like Ellen did. It is a way of checking in, letting those we care about know we are thinking of them.

This morning in my Pilates session, my trainer asked me if I was retired. I said, “No, not really; I’ll always have a project here and there.” Last week I said yes to an offer to facilitate a panel discussion, and I am in the planning stages for a few other projects that I will share as they are more fully developed. I appreciate this quieter season. I can be still long enough to let the ideas settle, like a butterfly on the coneflowers outside my window. If you are able, carve out some quiet time for yourself, whether it is a few hours or a few weeks. If we get still enough, if we are comfortable with the quiet, we can hear. And if you can hear, you can dream.

Cape Elizabeth, Maine

2024 Book Favorites

Every year I set reading goals but it is not about how many books I read just so I can hit a certain number. My reading tends towards nonfiction, including memoir. I read dozens of books in a year, but these are a few books that stood out for me in 2024.

Nonfiction

The Mango Tree by Annabelle Tometich

Tometich’s memoir opens with her Filipina mother being arrested for shooting at a man who was stealing the mangoes from her beloved tree. This incident provides the starting point for the author’s examination of her own identity, her mother’s life, and what it means to be from two worlds and cultures. I met Tometich just before her debut novel was published, when she attended my panel at AWP, an annual writing conference that brings together thousands of writers, teachers, publishers, etc. She uses her humor and introspection to tell a moving story of growing up with loss and its effects on a family.

Praisesong for Kitchen Ghosts by Crystal Wilkinson

Every Christmas since I was child, my family has had my mother’s special black walnut cookies. She would make them Christmas Eve, we could have a few after midnight mass and before settling in to wait for Christmas morning to arrive. You might have a holiday memory like that too, a special dish that sends you right back to family. In Praisesong for Kitchen Ghosts by Crystal Wilkinson, the author melds stories of her family over five generations with her memories of time spent in kitchens, her grandmother’s and her own. She pieces together parts of her family history and their life in the hills of Kentucky, where they have lived since the 1800s. From the biscuits she has mastered after watching her grandmother, to the recipes using fresh vegetables and home-raised meats, she describes how food was a language in her family. I loved this book for the stories and the recipes, which she shares with detail.

Fiction

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Dubois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

This book, which is several hundred pages long, is a masterpiece. It chronicles the story of a Black family from the early period in U.S. history when Africans were forcibly removed from home and brought to the United States and Native Americans had their lands stolen, to current times. Although there are sections that are painful to read because of enslavement and family trauma, I came away with a sense of how the pain of enslavement has had generational impact on this entire country and increased respect and compassion for the resilience of people who had to endure it and still survived. In December 2023, I read Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward and I highly recommend reading them both. In some ways they seem like companion stories.

The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter

I am starting to see more novels that are set during the COVID pandemic. This book starts with a mystery because a woman goes missing, but the real story is in the lives and reactions of the people in her circle, including her husband, a friend, and their families. COVID is always there in the background, because of the isolation and fear it caused for so many, particularly those who were affected early on such as those living in New York. Just when you think you have an answer to this puzzle, Porter spills another secret and you cannot stop reading.

My goal has been set for this year – a blend of fiction and nonfiction, authors from various backgrounds, and some books where I study the author’s craft in telling the story. Here’s to more good books in 2025!