Welcome to Pairings

If our selfies are our way of putting our best selves out there, these staged pictures show us little of who we really are. Can't we tell worlds more about people by looking at the books on their shelves?

To ignore a creative funk is to imperil your creative stamina. Here's how to take a time out to tend to your creative soul.

Like superheroes with super powers, we creatives must use our gift with care — nourish it, tend to it, and practice it.

On This Day: On July 19, 1937, the search for Amelia Earhart's plane ended. "She was in rebellion against a world that had been made, for women, too safe, too confining."

These authors found inspiration in the hidden histories of accomplished women, whose achievements went untold.

When First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt met a Texas dust storm in 1939, her encounter gave me an idea for my historical novel, Unspoken

For Women's History Month, we're reading the stories of women once marginalized or totally overlooked in historical fiction

All it took in 1885 to build Houston a city library was a book club, begun by women with a desire for "intellectual culture."

There's a Magic to Celebrating Milestones...and It Begins With Champagne (and Books About It)

Quitter's Day has come and gone, and with it, 80% of our 2025 New Year Resolutions. It's not too late for this smoother means to success.

When Mark Twain advised to write tight, he surely hadn't been enchanted by the Buzz Words of 2014. Read on for my Fable of Our Times.

How does inspiration strike? For these authors, it's the random events in everyday life that sparked ideas for their novels.

When you’re researching historical fiction, it would be so much easier to rev up the Time Machine. Here's how I did without time travel.

Henry Miller's own Eleven Commandments of Writing helped him maintain his focus on work in progress. Can they help with yours, too?

Here's how four words that will become your mantra can help to keep you on the writing track.

Crowded out by more robust tools, typewriters have vanished from our desks. But not our back yards.

Looking for some unique new traditions? Here are seven ways to celebrate Christmas Texas-Style, like they do in Austin, Texas.

Don’t fight it. Creativity is a choice. Once you make it, the ups, and the downs, are the fun part.

In 2006 I wrote this ode to my creative spirit, "Artist's Poem," and found renewed inspiration.

Hitting the road is part of my creative process. And I never pass by a historical marker without braking.