Climbing Kilimanjaro

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Each Labor Day I remember the high point in my life, reaching the rim of Mount Kilimanjaro, a dormant snow-topped volcano rising more than 19,000 feet in Tanzania. In late summer1963, four other Peace Corps Volunteers (Ethiopia I) and I vacationed in colonial East Africa. Our five-day trek (three up, two down) started badly. We missed our morning flight to the base and spent an exhausting, and fascinating, cross-country trip on buses and vans.  We arrived at the lodge sometime between 1 and 2 a.m. They’d given our rooms to others but invited us to stretch out on the bench … Continue reading →

The Feedsack Dress Now on Kindle

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It’s hard to find even a used hard copy of The Feedsack Dress, but Cave Hollow Press just issued a new e-edition on Amazon’s Kindle ($2.99). You can also read the opening chapters there for free. I finished the first draft in 1976. After living in Ethiopia, Austria, and Washington, D.C., I was struck by the huge changes in my northeast Missouri farm community and wanted to share my observations. I read social and economic histories and decided to set the book in 1949, a time of great transition for the whole country and for farms like ours. We were … Continue reading →

How I Promoted 1776 in 1976

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I’ve been feeling uninformed about how places around the country are celebrating the 250th anniversary. That’s probably because I spent most of 1975 and early 1976 promoting Bicentennial events and sites to tourists in six countries: Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan. The plum contract came from the late U.S Travel Service, Department of Commerce. I don’t know how USTS’s successor works, but here’s what I did 50 years ago. USTS was one of my freelance clients when the job offer came. The small office worked with the U.S. travel industry, private and public, to attract visitors … Continue reading →

My Poems from Ethiopia

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In case you haven’t heard, April is National Poetry Month. I’m no poet (see proof below), but at times over the last 75 years I’ve scribbled verses, usually on special occasions, to entertain myself and friends. I’ve also found attempting to commit poetry to be therapeutic, particularly in coping with grief. The discipline of writing in even loose forms provides this prose writer with a distraction, and maybe a clarification. Reading verse written years ago can be satisfying because of the memories it brings back. I’m sharing some from my years (1962-1964) as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Dessie, Ethiopia, … Continue reading →

Memories of Iran

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The recent distressing events in Iran remind me of working there in 1969, 10 years before revolutionaries took over the American embassy and held the staff hostage. I’m still mystified about why my employer, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, sent me, a lowly editor, to discuss an agreement with the Ministry of the Economy to participate in a month-long international trade fair in Tehran. My only related experience had been serving as a press officer and general assistant at a similar fair in Budapest. My primary Iranian contacts were two former UNIDO employees, one a friend named Ali. They … Continue reading →

The New Madrid Tremors Continue

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Early December 16, 1811, the destructive New Madrid Earthquakes began. For more than two months people in southeast Missouri, northeast Arkansas, and western Kentucky and Tennessee endured fear and privations from three major earthquakes (above 7.5 on the Richter Scale) and another 20 almost as bad. Many of the roughly 2,000 smaller ones disturbed their days and nights. Eighteen of the quakes were so strong that they caused church bells to ring on the East Coast and made dishes fall from shelves in such places as the Executive Mansion. Seismologists still monitor the New Madrid Seismic Zone. They have detected … Continue reading →

Celebrating Jane Austen’s 250th Birthday

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This year Janeites around the world are celebrating Jane Austen’s 250th birthday (December 16, 1775). Although she wrote only six polished novels before her death in 1817, she has become one of the most popular novelists in history. (If Pride and Prejudice is the only title you can remember, refresh your memory at https://carolynmulford.com/writing/vacationing-with-jane-austen.) She may be more popular now than ever. That’s partly because the movie and TV adaptations of her books over the last 30 years have drawn and delighted readers not doing assignments. Another factor has been the proliferation of novels imagining the life of Austen’s characters … Continue reading →

Creating a Canine Character

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To help a friend worrying about “interviewing” pets for a community newsletter, I dug up my old guest blog for Wicked Cozy Writers on portraying a dog as a supporting character. Here’s an adaptation. Planning Show Me the Murder, I spent weeks envisioning three old friends reunited in their hometown: Phoenix, a wounded former CIA operative; Annalynn, a do-gooder whose husband died in a sleazy motel; and Connie, a struggling singer/music teacher. Mid book, a Belgian Malinois named Achilles popped up as a plot point—the only witness to a crime. Phoenix finds him shot, starved, and tied to a tree. … Continue reading →

Celebrating July 4th by Making Ice Cream

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In the 19040s, we celebrated July 4th by making ice cream. My mother saved extra milk, cream, and eggs to mix and heat with the junket, sugar, and vanilla.  She started soon after breakfast because the mix needed to set. Meanwhile my father cleaned up the green-painted wood freezer keg, and my younger sister and I brought a panful of cattle salt from the barn. Then the three of us took the pickup to the ice house in town to buy a 50-pound block of ice. My father used ice tongs to carry the ice to the pickup and, once … Continue reading →

4-H and Sewing in the 1940s

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4-H came to my rural community about two years after World War II ended. We had no other youth organizations available, so 4-H, led by two wonderful (female and male) county Extension agents, made a huge impact on us children—and our parents. As I recall, the whole community met at New Hope School (grades one through eight) to hear the agents describe the program and recruit adult volunteers to lead projects teaching practical skills ranging from sewing to raising calves. Then all the dozen or so kids nine or older signed up, elected officers (an unfamiliar task), and took the … Continue reading →

I Am a River

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Each week I lunch with a group of friends and discuss a topic. Last time the coordinator posed this question: What is the shape of your life? The answers included a rectangle, a vase, a cloud, and an octagon. Usually I wing it, but this time I wrote my response. The Shape of My Life I am a river, Birthed in a puddle, Nourished by rain, Pushed to overflow And grow broader And deeper.   Springs and creeks fed my flow. Widening waters gathered force, Thrusting me against unyielding barriers And cascading me over rocky falls.   Other streams joined … Continue reading →

Where to Find My Books

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While only one of my books, Show Me the Sinister Snowman, continues to be published in print and electronic editions, several of my novels are available from online sellers. Most of the copies are used, but columbiabooksonline.com, my supportive local bookstore, has a small stock of new Show Me hardbacks and paperbacks. I also have a few copies of all my novels except The Feedsack Dress, my historical children’s book, and Show Me the Murder, the first in my mystery series featuring a former spy returning   home and solving crimes with old friends. Fortunately e-editions still exist. Barnes and Noble … Continue reading →