You have found the Starving Artist blog, about books, writing, and both indie and conventional publishing. Please follow the drop down menus to navigate around the page or just scroll down to read the blog. And why the moniker? See the first two blog posts from 2012. For DTF’s books, please visit devontrevarrowflahertybooks.wordpress.com. Enjoy!
Well, we’re working our way around the calendar. We’ve now had Easter ham nuggets at our own, quiet Easter tables surrounded by homemade sanitizer and either a mountain of or a lack of toilet paper, birthdays consisting of only people in our “bubbles,” masked and in open parks despite the weather, Halloween picking sanitized bags…
Another week, another middle grades book under the bridge. It is true: I seem to read almost nothing but middle grades book these days. You’re just going to have to take my word for it that I have much wider interests in literature than middle grades books. However, between curriculum-writing for seventh and eighth grade…
Well, I did read this book maybe a dozen years ago, so giving it a re-read for Halloween-time, I expected to really like it. I have recommended it as seasonal reading for years and I remember being really excited about it. Perhaps I was surprised by it the first time, but this time the fact…
I’ve been perusing best-ofs lists for a number of years, online. I like them, and as you might know, I like making my own or building to-do lists from others’ best-of lists. One of the lists that I have come to like the best is from Oprah Magazine. The following list of Thanksgiving reads and…
Though, as of today, we have officially moved into the next “season,” Thanksgiving and (let’s be honest) Christmas, we put Halloween to bed until next year. Most of these reviews, however, are for Halloween-themed stuff because I really wallow in it in October. It’ll make a better reference in 2021, the year when the holidays…
Well, well, well. I put the Jim Kay illustrated versions of the first three Harry Potter books (all that was available so far) on my Christmas list last year. They seemed like fun. And my husband and kids got them for me and they were so beautiful under the Christmas tree and then I looked…
Whew! I better get to reviewing my Halloween reads, or it’ll be useless, at least for you this year. While I’ve already given my list of recommendations, I have read a few new books and watched a few new movies this year, expanding on my same-old. I travelled a few weeks back. It was in…
Tech doesn’t usually interest me. In fact, it frustrates and disgusts me more than interests or amazes me. I still have fantasies in which I am sitting in my front window in the chair and I am reading and sipping tea and contemplating my evening and whether I will paint or embroider and the TV…
A couple months in to school, and this is the third book I am assigning for my middle grades Language Arts class which is also studying Modern History. The first two books were a moderate win, so I thought it would be too much to hope for another success, and yet… This book was even…
Well, I am behind on my posts, which can be attributed to a trip that I took to St. Louis to see a friend married and also the demise of my current laptop. To be clear, that laptop—an ancient and cheap HP—was headed out the door for years. It took minutes to do anything, even…
I haven’t addressed the holidays in a few years. And when I have addressed the holidays, I have been limited by my own experiences, which is fine by me, because part of the charm of the holidays is tradition. However, you might want to branch out beyond Elf and Frankenstein, and I might want to…
I have been really enjoying history, lately. Perhaps it’s my age showing. Perhaps it’s my way of dealing with the overwhelming amount of “history” that’s happening to us right now. It makes me feel like I have more perspective and I also feel like I relate to the people on the pages of history more…
My twelve-year-old son joined a book club this year. Okay, that’s a bit of a laugh. I forced my son into a book club. Yes, I am the dentist with the kids with bad teeth, or more literally: the writer with a son who can’t stand the sight of the printed word. He is too…
I really didn’t think that I would go three weeks without posting a blog post, not any time during this (pandemic) season, anyhow. Alas I did go almost three weeks without posting or even maintaining the blog. What can I say? I was sick. Did I have the Covid? I do not know. I think—by…
I may be a little under the weather. You hate to admit such a thing in a pandemic, because not only is it panic-inducing for you and your loved ones, but it also comes with a certain amount of ostracizing. Rest assured, my children and I—who are very mildly ill (probably a cold)—have cancelled all…
Heads up: this book is meant for Christians. It pertains to that particular faith in an intimate way. You have been warned. Technically Sit, Walk, Stand is not on my working list of best books, but the author, Watchman Nee, is. I read this book because my pastor preached from it this summer and gave…
Once again, I must begin by explaining that I veer regularly toward all things British. I have some YA Brit comedies in my cupboard, ala Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging. So when How to Build a Girl showed up in my previews, I immediately put it on my to-watch list. Though it is based on…
FORREST GUMP I forgot this one, last month. I believe we chose it because it was literally the first title on the Best Movies and Shows list. Also, my daughter had already seen it and wanted to watch it again. We have it in the house, too. So we stuck it in and watched. If…
This movie was a little reluctantly recommended to us at a writing group meeting, maybe a year ago. It’s been on my to-watch list, and during a recent temporary subscription to Starz, I noticed it was on there and took advantage of an evening by myself. (What?!? Oh, the few up-sides of pandemic life.) At…
Sometimes themes just happen. Native American-colonist relations in the 1750s in middle grades literature is a theme that just happened to me, hardcore. As you can see, my last two reviews were Calico Captive and The Sign of the Beaver, and now I am about to review Lynne Reid Banks’ Indian in the Cupboard. I…
