We are having a celebration... for Dragon’s Hanukkah December 14, 2025 4:00-5:00 PM The Last Word Bookstore116 S. Main StreetMt. Airy, MD 21771 Come join the fun. Meet the author. Then head over to the Menorah Lighting event in the Railyard (1 N. Main St.) at 5:00 PM. 

Looking for a great holiday gift? Come to the Hanukkah Shuk at Temple Isaiah I'll be there with my books, jam, and other fun stuff December 7, 2027 9:30 AM - 2:30 PM 12200 Scaggsville Rd. Fulton, MD 20759

I have a new BE WHO YOU ARE Design on Redbubble. It is also available on long sleeve and sweatshirts. These make great gifts! Remember Only you can BE WHO YOU ARE

Facebook exposes users to 11 scam ads a day

Put the pieces together.

Can you figure out what?

Come to Books and Brews Union Craft Brewery 1700 W 41st St #420 Baltimore, MD 21211 Over 18 wonderful local authors! Grab a drink and buy some books. Or a bite to eat from Carroll and Son Fine Foods. I'll be there with books and fig jam. Both make excellent gifts.

Books make excellent gifts and I have several to choose from. If you're game for something to wear, visit my Redbubble Shop. They have a 50% off sale going on right now!

This is the banner on the USDA website. “Senate Democrats have now voted 12 times to not fund the food stamp program, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. They can continue to hold out for healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance.”

On October 18, 2025 I exercised my constitutional rights by participating in one of the demonstrations around the country. I was one of over 7,000,000 people in around 2700 protests around the country. Columbia, Maryland had more than 6,500 people. 30 percent bigger than the demonstration in June. Despite the two cars that drove by flipping demonstrators the bird, it was a peaceful event with speeches, signs, and waving at cars.

Come To The Carroll County Farmers Market November 1, 2025 8:00-2:00 I'll be there with my books and a few other special items. Carroll County Agriculture Center700 Agriculture Dr.Westminster, MD 21157

It's time for holiday horror as we revisit the 80's glory of the Gremlins franchise with Jack Cullen, Amy Kaplan, and host James P. Nettles III! You can watch it HERE!

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books James and the Giant Peach Roald Dahl I was surprised to learn this book has been challenged. Yes, it has scarry things, but so does life. In the end, James finally finds the home he deserves. I read it years ago. James Henry Trotter lives with two ghastly hags. Aunt Sponge is enormously fat with a face that looks boiled and Aunt Spiker is bony and screeching.

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books A Wrinkle in Time Madeleine L’Engle I read this book in collage as an assignment. It was a lot of fun. My daughter really liked it as well. While not banned, it has been challenged several times. It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books The Call of the Wild Jack London This is a fantastic book that depicts the brutality of life during the Alaskan gold rush. At its heart, it is a story of survival. I read all the sequels as well. First published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is regarded as Jack London's masterpiece. Based on London's experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, …

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemmingway War sucks and this book shows it well. I read this in HS. A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield - the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep.

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books The Golden Compass Philip Pullman Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal--including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world. Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors?

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books The Complete Perseposil Marjane Satrapi My daughter recommended this one to me. It is a graphic novel, but not for kids. Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming…

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck Another story I read in HS. They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence.

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books Brave New World Aldous Huxley Hard to believe, but this was another HS read. I really appreciate my school more now than ever before. Aldous Huxley's profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. Banned and challenged because of sexual content and promiscuity, anti-religious/atheistic beliefs, anti-family, drug use, profanity, and suicide

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books Lord of the Flies William Golding I read this one is HS and it was an eyeopener into human nature. We had some great discussions in class. At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate; this far from civilization the boys can do anything they want.

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins My daughter suggested I read this one and I loved it. It does have a lot of violence in it, but so do most dystopian stories. It’s a great opening for discussion with your readers. The movie, however, was even more intense and I wouldn’t recommend that for young people.

Exercise Your Rights: Read Banned Books Water for Elephants Sara Gruen When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, drifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie.