Click here to read Erwin A. Thompson Western Series book review.

Cattle Country and Back Trail: Two Tales from the Thompson Western Series
Erwin A. Thompson
ISBN: 0-595-40228-3
Publisher: iUniverse
$17.95 US
Reviewer: Gordon Randall

Buy on “Cattle Country and Back Trail” on Amazon by clicking here.

Randall begins his review by saying….”Turns out that Cattle Country and Back Trail by Erwin Thompson grabbed me by the horns like a champion roper and tied up my attention tighter than a piece of wet leather. Though it may be fiction, the author sure has a knack for this genre ‘cause I was immediately drawn into the action quicker than a drunk gun slinger on Saturday night. Thompson paints the picture with vivid descriptions of the rural countryside as well as the muddy ruts of old western towns. Thompson knows people, too. He takes you inside every character’s head so you understand where each of them came from, how they got where they are, what made them who they are, and why they act the way they do. He would have been a great cowboy psychologist!”

Click here to read the preface of “Cattle Country and Back Trail” on Amapedia.

Bonnye Brown has developed an innovative use of padding in her paintings that fascinated me and gives them dimension. She has an affinity for the world of women as a subject for her art.

Riehlife: Bonnye, tell us about your show at Portfolio Gallery.

Bonnye Brown: I have about seven pieces of artwork in the show at Portfolio.

Mr. Powell is a long time friend of mine and the brother of the President of our art organization in Kansas City called The Light In The Other Room. I am the Vice President. We have about 15 professional artists in our organization and we show together in the metropolitan area and also around the country.

I believe the paint on a painting should be just as exciting as its subject matter. I try to master the medium that I work in as well the subject that I choose.

I use a variety of techniques in my paintings. One in particular that I have found a love for is knives. I have created a style of my own that is not easy to duplicate.

Click here to read Riehlife profile on Keith Shepherd.

(All photos courtesy of Bonnye Brown)
Bonnye Brown and Robert Powell in front of Bonnye’s painting “Color Folks.”

Keith Shepard in front of his painting “Jelly’s Last Jam.”

Keith Shepard, Bonnye Brown, Anthony High, and Ed Hogan (not pictured).

I’m not yet trained to drink coffee, eat icecream, and meals out on my nearby shopping street in the Central West End.

City life, cafe life eludes me.

I mostly still entertain at home…including entertaining myself.

You’ve seen those little tykes in grocery stores with their tiny carts and the tall flags that say, “Shopper in training”? Well, we were never trained to shop. We were trained to work: to make and grow and fix and mend what we needed.

“Do myself” was the family motto.

“Waste is sin” the subtext to the string drawer. “Waste not, want not” sewn inside our skins.

CNN Trains Its Lens on Race
By FELICIA R. LEE
CNN explores how black people are feeling, thinking and doing in the two-part “Black in America” series.

“Black Americans think there is a black America,” Ms. O’Brien said in the interview. “It’s a metaphor for a chunk of experiences. Every black person will tell you that white people need to understand black people: they don’t know our players, but we have to know their players.”

Joel Heffner is a man of many projects. One of his really fun ones is a site called “How We Became Writers: This is how we did it.”

He’s just posted my story of how I became a writer which includes my poem “Scribbler,” from “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary.”

You can read the entire post by clicking here to discover what wandering on the land, reading old-fashioned books…and having a blue collar father who writes…can do for you…if you’re an impressionable young thing in Southwestern Illinois in the 1950s and growing up on land that’s been in the family since the 1860s.

Students! Want to enter the annual writing contest, The Big Write? Get started now. Submission deadline is Sept. 12.

The three top winners in each of two grade level categories: (1) 4th and 5th graders, and (2) 6th through 8th graders, will win $100 for 1st place, $50 for second place, and $25 for 3rd place,

Of course your be reading your winning entries before a live audience at The Big Read Festival. Check out the contest guidelines by clicking here.

The Big Read in Clayton, an annual outdoor book festival, is Oct. 11. The Big Read site posted last year’s winning stories if you wanna see.

Click here to read a fun interview Annette Crymes conducted with a student of one of her writing workshops…presented here in St. Louis Today’s book blog as a student prepares to enter this year’s Big Write.

Click here to read more about Annette (a.r.) Cryme’s passion for art and writing.

I’m one of the judges for the Big Write (as is Annette), and I can hardly wait to read the entries.

What is Foyle’s War? To uphold human values in a time of war, in this case World War II Britain, when those values are put aside in the fighting of the war for the sake of the greater good. If it’s all right to kill in war, is it all right to kill at home?

Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle of the Hastings, England police department says, “No. Murder is murder and must be apprehended.”

Anthony Horowitz, the man behind the Midsomer Murders series and this, has created a splendidly subtle drama. That subtlety extends from the plots, sets, characterizations, and performances…really every aspect of “Foyle’s War” and thus keeps the viewer’s quieter sensibilities engaged while pondering not just who dun it, but also the heart of the moral crisis presented each week.

What I love about “Foyle’s War” is how it shows that suffering is equal opportunity. Not only do the obvious people suffer during war, that is, the soldiers on either side who die and their surviving families, but the fabric of society suffers as well.

Last night in Series Six, Film Two: Broken Souls: The soldier who survives and returns suffers. The son of that soldier and the wife of that soldier suffers. The soldiers who saw battle and are treated at the local mental ward suffer; the physician treating these same soldiers whose family is lost in war-torn Europe suffers.

Meanwhile, Foyle, steadfastly played by Michael Kitchen, soldiers on…showing us a vaster reach of human intelligence and spirit.

Annemieke Marie Farrow, Master of the Portable Portfolio

Today at 9 p.m. CST (my time!) for 60 minutes check out:

The Singing Office
Animal Shelter vs. School Bus Drivers

Joey Fatone (N’SYNC) and Mel B. (Spice Girls) are on a fun mission to discover hidden talent in workplaces across America. Mel B. is searching at the SPCALA while Joey scours the Pupil Transportation Cooperative.

Annemieke Farrow, daughter of my New Mexico long time friends Stephanie and John Farrow, makes her TV debut on this show, and we’ll all be glued as if it were the Oscars.

I’ve known Annemieke since she was a baby. She’s made a brave 180 degree turn in her life moving from 1) a Broadway musical career of dancing and singing and acting in musicals and Shakespeare…playing Reporter #2 in Spider-Man 2…to….training dogs; and 2) from NYC to LA; and 3) from long hair to short hair, as I recall first seeing her.

Now that’s what I call a PORTABLE PORTFOLIO!

Such a capacity for change and strength with flexibility leaves me applauding in the aisles with the popcorn sliding off my lap. You can be sure I’ll be there tonight, and I hope you’ll join me along with millions of other viewers.

Family stories do not have to be diary-like stories. They can be word ideas.

Little boy in diaper.

Icecream cone.

There, now: don’t you get vivid images and memories from these phrases?