The soft face of the child ducks for cover as a tank fires and missiles launch. You can almost see the innocence leaving his eyes for good and fear taking its place. Awful.
But this is happening and this is always happening somewhere in the world.
Watch this five minute video and think of what it must be like to grab all that’s important and keep walking until the fear of death is far behind.
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The last writing award I won was in 4th grade. I wrote a story about a boy who stumbled upon a pair of flying shoes that he wore, flew into the heavens, and met Thor. It won honorable mention in the county writing competition.
My first two books have been well-received, and launched my career as a writer, but they’ve yet to win me any awards. Sure, if the publishing world had a superlative category, I would definitely have a good shot at, “Most likely to go anywhere, in search of anything.” But no actual awards, yet.
That’s why I’m thrilled to announce that I’m an Emerging Author Finalist for the 2013 Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, alongside Tricia…
“Hi, my name is Kelsey Timmerman. How much does it cost to have a kid at your hospital? I’ll pay cash. ”
This is the state of the American medical system today. Patients are forced to approach the birth of a child like they would shopping for a used car. That’s exactly how it felt, and that’s exactly how an expecting mother described her similar experience shopping for hospitals recently to the New York Times:
“I feel like I’m in a used-car lot.”
Like the woman featured in the story, we had insurance, just not insurance that covered maternity expenses. Of course, we didn’t realize that we didn’t have maternity coverage until after my wife Annie was pregnant with our second child.
We had different insurance for the birth…
Summer is a time of rest, bike rides, backyard pools, and teaching my 4-year-old daughter to rider her bike without training wheels (on Father’s Day! I won Father’s day!). But I love summer events. They tend to be more intimate and laid back.
Here are my July Appearances
July 20 – Paso Robels, CA: Project Hope & Fairness Fundraiser at Pear Valley Vineyards. Wine and chocolate? Yes please! I traveled with Tom Neuhaus of Project Hope and Fairness in Ivory Coast while researching WHERE AM I EATING? Happy to help them raise money to improve the lives of cocoa farmers in West Africa.
July 22 – Columbus, IN: Batholomew County Library. Love visting libraries and happy they are having me back to talk about EATING after I spoke there about…
Shortly after I landed in Valledupar, Colombia, I was abducted by the indigenous Arhuaco.
Over the previous few week I had been in contact with them and must’ve asked, “Do I need a translator? My Spanish stinks,” ten times. They never answered. They never told me if they were going to pick me up at the airport. They never told me that I was going to be whisked away into the mountains down treacherous roads to the heart of their spiritual world. They never told me that I was about to have an amazing experience witnessing the most preserved indigenous culture I had ever seen.
Of course, I did use Google Translate for all of my emails, so maybe they thought my Spanish was better than it actually is.
Lucky for me,…
