My mother liked her purse's tweedy, sporty look.

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

My mother is gone. But when she died she left a few things behind, including the love seat that followed her from Birmingham, Michigan, to Phoenix, and finally to California, where it… Read full post »

Us in 1975. Photo by Ruth & Scott Newhall

Hey, Everybody!

Jon Newhall -- a brand new OS blogger -- and I just celebrated our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. Two kids, one house and lots of rewarding jobs later, we seem to be in it for the… Read full post »

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

I think of irises as a common, garden-variety flower.

You see them growing everywhere. Our own back yard had dozens of them growing wildish when we moved in thirty-plus years ago, and now we have a mess of them growing in our front… Read full post »

Chicken wings, legs and breasts for sale. Photos by BF Newhall.

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

I’m not bitter. I didn’t win the “Why It’s OK to Eat Meat” contest the New York Times Magazine put on a few weeks ago. I didn’t even make the final six, which were… Read full post »

Nabeela Raza Sajjad founded Islamic Art Exhibit in 2009. Here, with her work "Creation of Heavens and Earth."

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

My book is pretty much done. But I still need to find myself a few more people to interview. A nice, talkative Muslim woman with lots of… Read full post »

Children place flowers on the Easter cross. Photo by BF Newhall

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

The really nice thing about Easter is -- you get to sing. Good and loud. And if you go to my church, you get to sing the Alleluia Chorus from "The Messiah," which if you're… Read full post »

 Dozens of camellias hit the pavement at my house today.

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Jerome, that famously abstemious fourth- and fifth-century scholar and saint, is said to have kept a human skull on his desk to remind him of his mortality. Those of us with gardens don't need a sku… Read full post »

 Lauren Patti, a short memoir

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Some thirty writers and storytellers took the mic -- for three short minutes each -- to share their works in progress Friday evening, March 23,  at Book Passage in San Francisco's Ferry Building. The writers had been taking c… Read full post »

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

As I made plans for my mother’s memorial mass at the tiny St. Vincent Catholic Church in Pentwater, Michigan, last summer, I asked my brothers and my mother’s grandchildren if they’d like to participate in the service.

Pentwater, Michigan, 20… Read full post »

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

It’s not often you get to do something for the dead. But every year around this time, florists in San Francisco’s East Bay are invited to put on a show to benefit the Friends of Mountain View Cemetery, a famous old cemetery at the to… Read full post »

It's March and therefore full-out spring in our California front yard. Come visit my garden at http://BarbaraFalconerNewhall.com

I can't seem to post more than this one outrageous poppy. There's more!

Photos by Barbara Falconer Newhall

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

I discovered a forgotten pair of jeans at the back of my closet the other day. Nice jeans, I thought. I could throw them on for a quick trip to the drug store or the plant store. I tried them on. A perfect fit.

They were a… Read full post »

Jeff Greenwald

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

I'm getting out of my writing room long enough to take Jeff Greenwald's Page to Stage class at the San Francisco Writers Grotto.

It starts Jan. 17. Sounds like fun. I think there are still spaces available. Do yu live in the San Francisco… Read full post »

Christmas candy on December 29 . . .

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

My son Peter’s girlfriend’s mom has a lot of good qualities. She gardens, she composts, she giggles at my jokes, she adores my son. This… Read full post »

I just discovered a site called Nieman Storyboard: Breaking down story in every medium. A project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.

Looks like there might be lots of good stuff for writers on this site -- including creative nonfiction writers.

A very helpful new… Read full post »

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Is the Yosemite high country even more beautiful than the Himalayas? 

My hiking pal Al Aistrope thinks so. The Himalayas' claim to fame, of course, is all those high, spectacularly high, mountain peaks.

Yosemite, on the other hand, a… Read full post »

Another photo of beautiful Yosemite National Park high country near Tuolemne Meadows. (It's pronounced too-OLL-eh-mee, btw.)

Photo c 2011 BF Newhall Read full post »

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Trying on bras at Nordstrom the other day, the truth was all too apparent. Too much flesh here. Too much skin there.

Some of it fit into the bra. A lot of it didn't. I felt terrible about my body.

Lucky for my body image, however,… Read full post »

By Barbara Falconer Newhall, with a little help from her friends

On my last birthday, in September, I had three wonderful days at Tuolumne Meadows and Inyo National Forest in the Sierra Nevada with two wonderful friends.

It was probably my best birthday ever -- though there's maybe some forgotten bir… Read full post »

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

I first met Jasmin Darznik back in 2006, and right away she presented a problem. We were in the same nonfiction workshop – it was led by agent Michael Carlisle – at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley.

I had dutifully read… Read full post »