Letters from Rona / The writing life / Sort by date

Among the many rewards of this website is the sweet obligation of an annual top 10 list where every slot goes to me. So here they are, my friends---the posts I wouldn't want you to miss because they're the closest to my heart. [more]

What is it with blog posts on blogging? Every time I write one, my blogger friends want to comment, stirring up on online word fest that recalls the distant days when every poet worth his quill wrote poems about poetry and sprinkled his work with allusions to other people's verses on the mysteries of their craft. My recent post "Blogging as spiritual practice" inspired some pretty searching questions about why and what I here. I'd never thought about that before. What a worthy challenge for a blogger! [more]

I've never had a mantra or a healing crystal. I bombed at meditation. When someone rhapsodizes about The Secret, I can't keep the disdain off my face. You might think I ought to show some respect for spiritual practices. In fact I do have one. It's called blogging. [more]

Dayle must have been 15 when she opened her mother's copy of Ladies' Home Journal and found a short story called "Paper Flowers." The illustration featured two barefoot, guitar-toting girls---one who looks bold enough to hop a freight, the other more demure, as if she's only toying with rebellion. I wrote the story, which Dayle has remembered with affection for more than 40 years. [more]

There ought to be an award for a reader so tenacious, she'll spend six weeks tracking down a copy of a book. Not a signed first edition of The Great Gatsby (dust jacket intact, every page pristine) but My Mother's Daughter by one Rona Maynard, available online in paperback for $15.19. Now, you might think online bookstores exist to sell books to people who want to buy them and have gone so far as to type their credit card number in the handy little box. O ye of too much faith! [more]

I am now the perplexed, strung-out owner of a spiffy new desktop computer. It has a monitor so big and bright, I can see my reflection while writing this (better book that hair appointment pronto). Its operating system has the subtlety and cunning to hide essential files in mysterious virtual crannies. Its keyboard boasts more symbols and buttons than the control panel of a jet. [more]

I don't know anyone in Novi Sad, most likely will never go there and had to Google the place to find out that it's in Serbia. So I can't help but wonder how it happened that on May 14 some stranger in Novi Sad set out for an online stroll and ended up on this website. We're not talking just a peek in my virtual doorway. The mystery guest actually read these pages for 11 minutes and 47 seconds---a not-inconsiderable sojourn in Blogland. [more]

I'm packing my bag, clearing out the fridge and wondering which essential item I'll forget on my long-awaited trip to China (please, not my glasses). Any minute now, I'll turn off the computer. Used to be, these steps were enough to get me out the door. Now there's one more: stock my website with lively reading. [more]

I keep a folder full of letters from readers who say that my words changed their lives. I might start to get complacent if not for my angry readers. Their aggrieved, insistent voices remind me that not everyone shares my take on things. [more]

If you are or expect to be a grandmother; if you've ever felt a surge of gratitude or a stab of resentment at a grandmother in your child's life; if you treasure the shoes-off, second-cup-of-coffee frankness of women sharing secrets among friends, you owe it to yourself to read Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Share the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother. Full disclosure: I'm one of the writers. [more]

Here in Toronto my gardening friends complain that spring has been teasing them. Up north in Sudbury, where a gray crust of snow still covers the frozen earth, people know better than to rush the seasons. So I've just learned on my first visit to the Nickel City, where I was speaking and signing copies of My Mother's Daughter at the annual Celebrate Women fundraiser. [more]

I wish I could choose which writings of mine would resonate most deeply with readers. I wouldn't pick "The Fan Club," a story I wrote at age 14 that continues to find new readers after more than 40 years. But an Iowa teacher tells me that "The Fan Club" sparked her love of words and her ambition to become a writer. What an honour. [more]