Ann Silverthorn

The other morning, to occupy myself during the mind-numbing task of lunch packing, I tuned my SiriusXM app to The Catholic Channel and then, EWTN, because my usual morning program was taking a break. As a “Cradle Catholic,” I was surprised to hear on “Morning Glory” that it is not proper to decorate for Christmas until Christmas Eve, rather than right…

In 1914, William Dimorier, a high school teacher from Erie, PA, received national recognition for a project he had initiated at Erie High called “Newspaper Week.” While Dimorier was not the originator of such a concept, his project was the seed for Erie’s long-running NIE (Newspapers in Education) program. The Monroe News-Star, in Monroe, Louisiana, ran the following story…

1/28/2017 – Two Days Early – I’m a Winner (Word Count 54,130) Yes, it’s true. I’m officially a NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) winner. My official word count is 54,130. I felt the need to exceed 50,000 words, because I started with 3,874. What do I win? Bragging rights and a good feeling, mostly. Best Intentions is a story of…

I’ve decided that one post with periodic updates makes more sense from here forward in this NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) adventure.  It seems as though I might actually complete this thing! 11/25/2017 – After Thanksgiving Break, Back on Track  (Word Count 45,322) I’m not gonna lie, it was nice taking a two-day break from this project…

Recently I was contacted by Julissa Arangure, community-outreach professional at Shari’s Berries. She had seen that I completed the 100 Happy Days challenge. Julissa wanted to share a blog post on that ran on their site called, “50 Ways to Cheer Someone Up When They Need a Smile.” She thought I might like to share the post with my…

On Thursday, November 9, 2017, we said a final goodbye to Nora. She was almost nine years old and died of kidney failure after living with Cushing’s Disease and blindness for more than two years. Even with these health challenges, her quality of life was quite good until she became sick a few weeks ago and declined like a roller-coaster…

I decided it would probably be better to do these NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) updates at the end of the day, rather than the beginning. It’s too easy to get sidetracked before the writing has started. While these updates may be helpful for someone who’s thinking about doing NaNoWriMo, or informative for anyone who is kind…

Yesterday marked a great start to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I started with 3,874 words and ended with 6,549. That’s a word count for the day of 2,675. My goal was 2,000. It was amazing how easily the words were dripping from my fingers. This exercise is good for an English major who constantly feels…

After many years of having a profile on the NaNoWriMo site, conditions are finally right for me to participate in the 50,000-word novel challenge during the month of November. NaNoWriMo is a non-profit organization that sponsors the challenge in which almost 400,000 people participate and only around 34,000 complete. I hope that posting this will make me…

I stood in the lobby of the 1891 Fredonia Opera House, in upstate New York, passing the time by looking at my phone while my husband sought out our will-call tickets. We were there to see Pat Donohue, Grammy-winning guitarist. Pat Donohue is well known for the almost-two decades he spent as a guitarist for the…