When I was a child, I had two best friends, Dawn and Gina. I met Gina on her sixth birthday, when I was 5 1/2. I remember looking up at her snowman hat on the bus the first day she came to school. Then, I got home to find her at my house. My mother…

Orville and I went to the bookstore after our trip to the laundry mat today (don’t ask!) and the wonderful lady there recommended a book called Snow Treasure about some children who snuck the treasury of Norway out from under the noses of the Nazi on sleds. We got back to Grandma’s and were telling…

Juss: “Mom! My old gameboy is broken!” Mommy: “Here let me help you.” I poke at the red binoculars he calls his ‘gameboy.’  “Is that better?” Juss: “But, Mom, my character’s still not moving!” Mommy: “I’ll try again.” Juss: “Now his feet aren’t moving!” Mommy: “I’ll change the battery.” I poke it again. Juss, departing:…

Orville and I spent two weeks filming our version of the Jonah story, Jonah and the Clown Fish. Orville and I wrote the script. We made a two-minute preview (which took forever) and then the 20 minute film of the story itself. We are using a hand-held 8mm camcorder, with no ability to edit or…

Now, if you type www.arhyalon.com into your address bar, it will bring you here! No idea why you would, but stil… kind of cool. (John was getting some Domain names. Thought I’d snap this one up for the distant future, after my current series comes out, when my next series comes out — at which point…

I was reminded by John’s blog of a sister and brother from Vietnam who used to help with the photography when John and I were working for the St. Mary’s Today. They hated Communism, and, at first, I assumed that Communism, to them, was the local bugaboo, the bad thing that had hurt their country.…

My friend Tee Morris asked me to post this: Award-nominated podcaster and Fantasy author Philippa Ballantine and I are feverishly working on a new spin on an old promotion.  “Double Trouble” is the first time two authors are collaborating to get BOTH their new books — The Case of The Pitcher’s Pendant: A Billibub Baddings…

The biggest excuse I have seen for the lurid stuff that appears in today’s YA books is: “But kids are already doing that at that age, so what could be the harm of writing about it?”  All these folks are making an assumption: that reading about something – seeing it in print – has the…

Kids are just so much fun. Juss said the above line two days ago. I thought it was hilarious.  Today at the pool I met a lovely woman who has seven kids. Two of hers, four of his, one of theirs. Not all of them live with her all the time, but I still admired her aplomb.…

Again…only for those who care to pray. ;-) For July, I had planned to write about either weather or health, but this came to me very strongly, so for this month let us know that: “…all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”…