A Pause, Not a Goodbye

After a couple of quiet years on this website, I know some of you may wonder whether I had wandered away from writing altogether. I have not. I am still here. I am still grateful. I am still putting words on paper almost every week.

The website, though, is going to come down for a while. It's time to renew and pay the web hosting company again, but I've chosen to let it rest instead of renewing. This website has been a home for my thoughts and stories for several years. Some of you have written kind words of appreciation. Thank you !

Thank you for reading over the years

A personal website is a modest thing. It does not shout. It waits. Waits for readers to type in the address, follow a link, or stumble across a post. A post waits for readers curious enough to spend a few minutes with another person’s words. That attention is no small gift.

Although I posted very little during the last couple of years, the quiet did not come from lack of interest. It came because time and energy are limited, and my larger projects took all of me. Besides writing a few short stories that I share with a writers club and our family, I have been especially busy writing and editing these:

Ground Cherries of the Prairie -my grandparents' story,

Always Near the Edge - a collection of poems by Richard Jansma, a friend who died several decades ago, and left all his materials in my hands.

Maybe We'll Meet Again - my lengthy romance novel which needs editing and rewriting before it gets published.

If you have not seen Ground Cherries of the Prairie, I hope you will consider asking for it from your favorite bookseller. You might also ask your public library to add it to their collection. In case you have wondered what "ground cherries" are, here are a couple of photos. They grow in a fragile husk on a tall bush like a hearty tomato, and fall to the ground when they are ripe. Inside the dry husk is a delicious little fruit.

I want to make one thing clear. I am still alive, and I am still writing. So while this website may go quiet, the writing itself will not.

This is a pause, not a goodbye. The website will disappear and perhaps reappear in a different form someday. I am still here, still writing, and still grateful.

Stan