TAKE A SEAT by Deborah Elliott-Upton In my “Writing & Marketing the Short Story” classes at the local college, I could tell who would be the best writers from the moment they chose a seat. At first, I thought it was a fluke when the students who would write the most interesting stories chose to […]

MYSTERY TRIP Deborah Elliott-Upton When we were kids, my parents often took us on Sunday drives. Back then no one worried about the cost of gasoline much and just driving around, cruising the city or countryside was a rather nice pastime. Dad enjoyed picking a different child each Sunday to be the “mystery guide.” Whoever […]

WHERE DID YOU HEAR THAT? by Deborah Elliott-Upton Like the rest of us, I am bombarded by information every day – some of it interesting enough to keep locked away in my mind’s filing system or at least scribbled in a notebook for future use. Some of it may help me on “Jeopardy” or a […]

OTHER THINGS by Deborah Elliott-Upton Sounds of nothingness surround me as if I were in a tomb. At first my mind questions the static not quite silence, but soon accepts it. I usually write with music in the background, sometimes quiet as if an afterthought, but often nearer to blaring. As a teenager, I’d always […]

BENEATH THE SURFACE by Deborah Elliott-Upton I feel like I’m treading water in a sea of Olympic swimmers sailing past me. My friend Jennifer Archer just published her first hardback, Through Her Eyes, a young adult novel that has a touch of mystery and a ghost and a fabulous cover. My friend April is in […]

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE by Deborah Elliott-Upton Yesterday, I spent most of the day/evening at the hospital. No one was ill. In fact, the doctor delivered good news, along with our granddaughter, Francesca Deborah Suzanne. She’s quite precious and beautiful and just about everything we could have ordered if there were such a catalog. Whenever […]

A LIFE WITHOUT DANGER by Deborah Elliott-Upton Some days I feel like the Roadrunner, but more often I walk in the footsteps of Wile E. Coyote. That coyote has been trying to catch the roadrunner for a long time and though he’s mail-ordered probably every gadget the Acme Company has in its catalog, he hasn’t […]