author, educator, attorney…lover of books, angels, & sailing ships
by PortiaLily Taylor "Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made..." ~ Robert N. Rose A Brigantine Sails from the Writer’s Dreams into the Pages of Her First Novel by PortiaLily Taylor The sailing ships that crossed oceans in olden times have always fascinated me. How were they built to travel… Continue reading A Brigantine Sails from the Writer’s Dreams into the Pages of Her First Novel
The Bizzell Library at the University of Oklahoma “When I am surrounded by books, I feel most at peace.” ~ Marjan Kamali, Novelist Recently, my husband and I returned to the University of Oklahoma for my law school reunion. The University of Oklahoma Foundation provided wonderful activities for the event, including tours of its Bizzell and… Continue reading Libraries: Where Purpose Finds Peace by PortiaLily Taylor
Library of the Franciscan Monastery in Dubrovnik found at BookJelly.com “If you want to know a country, read its writers.” ― Aminatta Forna In my last blog post, "Getting to Know Croatian Literature and Authors through Travel (Part I)" I wrote about my travels to Croatia. As an author, I was especially interested in Croatia as… Continue reading Getting to Know Croatian Literature and Authors through Travel (Part II) by PortiaLily Taylor
© Chris Taylor, Split 2024 Recently my husband and I visited the amazing and beautiful country of Croatia, the home of my maternal grandparents. Of course, I wanted to see locations in Split where my grandparents and their parents lived, were married, and went to church. In fact, I was moved by the thought I’d… Continue reading Getting to Know Croatian Literature and Authors through Travel (Part I) by PortiaLily Taylor
“And I rose In rainy autumn And walked abroad in a shower of all my days...” ~ Dylan Thomas from Poem in October These words of Dylan Thomas from his Poem in October symbolize his reflecting on past experiences that impacted his life and self-awareness. As I, too, consider “a shower of all my days,”… Continue reading Visiting Iconic Locations Where Dylan Thomas “Lived & Scribbled” by PortiaLily Taylor
Second in the Series "WHERE THEY LIVED & SCRIBBLED" by PortiaLily Taylor Despite being famous for “Invisible Man,” few Oklahomans have been as visible as Ralph Waldo Ellison—a man who the New York Times once said is “among the gods of America’s literary Parnassus.” — Kennedy Parker I discovered author, literary critic, and scholar Ralph… Continue reading Visiting Oklahoma City, the First Home of Ralph Ellison
Image found at https://www.neh.gov/article/oz-americas-fairy-tale “Though the best way to engage with great authors of the past is, of course, to read their work, there’s plenty to gain from visiting the places where they lived and scribbled. Touring writers’ preserved homes can help put their books in historical context or fulfill a quasi-religious need to pay… Continue reading “Where They Lived & Scribbled” Series: Visiting Coronado, the Winter Home of L. Frank Baum
“It’s difficult for someone these days, to understand what it was like, to suddenly have a ray of light in the dark. That’s really what it was like.” District of Columbia student Ken Howard regarding the 1963 March on Washington On August 28,1963, over 250,000 gathered for what came to be known as the March… Continue reading The March on Washington through the Eyes of a Child
by PortiaLily Taylor “Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know… Continue reading Shell Shock, a Screenplay, “Hurled into the Sea” of Books
“When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.” ― Zig Ziglar Although my professional life involved writing legal documents, policy-based materials, and academic curriculum, I always aspired to write fiction. To support that interest, I took creative writing classes, joined writing groups, and read… Continue reading Changing the Direction of My Publication Goal by PortiaLily Taylor
PortiaLily Taylor 