A Teaspoon of Star Stuff

I recently visited New York's American Museum of Natural History and was thoroughly star-struck by the Rose Planetarium's show "Journey to the Stars." I learned that the first stars in the universe were far more massive than today's balls of gas. They burned quick and hot before flaring out. Now here's the stelliferous part: we contain about a teaspoon's portion of these original stars.

Sidereal, dude! Try thirteen billion years' worth of awesome.

So the next time you feel doubt, rejection, or the mundanities of mortality smothering the spark and syllable from your soul, REMEMBER YOUR EMBER, my fellow scribblers.

Hunting for Atlantis

For all people addicted to myth and fantasy, here's a fascinating story about the search for the lost city of Atlantis.

"A" Worthy Word

I once had an English instructor in college tell me that if I used the following word in a paper, I would receive an automatic "A." Alas, his promise was in jest, but the word is a worthy addition to anyone's vocabulary. Meet inescapable's sinister twin:

INELUCTABLE. The word means "incapable of being evaded."

Example: My ineluctable fate is to work on reading protocols and lesson plans till the wee hours of the morning. Somehow, I think even drudgery sounds more noble when it is ineluctable!

Treasure at the Heart of the Tanglewood

I love to be astounded by a sentence. A word. A name. Meredith Ann Pierce's novel Treasure at the Heart of the Tanglewood astonishes me on each page. The story's ink is vivid with magic and pulls the reader into the soul of Brown Hannah, a girl whose sprig-filled hair holds more living secrets than she herself knows. After rebelling against the magician who has held her captive since her first memory, Hannah sets out to uncover her hidden past. Her only companions are a cranky magpie, three foxlets, and a black fox that is truly a knight, or perhaps a knight that is truly a fox. Read the story and find out!