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Monthly Archives: August 2025
Wake up and Smell the Paints
Doris von Tettenborn
Honorable Mention Off Topic Publishing
June 2024 CNF Contest
Published Off Topic Publishing
Inspired 55+Magazine
I turned 60 last year. I still have not recovered. I spent the previous year trying to get used to the concept by changing my computer password frequently. CRAZY60, LOVELY60, NOWAY60, STUPID60, HAPPY60, CRAPPY60, FRICKIN60.
It didn’t work.… Continue reading →
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Bloom by Bloom, Step by Step
Doris von Tettenborn
Won Off Topic Publishing September 2023
Creative Non-Fiction contest
Published in Off Topic Publishing,
Inspired 55+Lifestyle Magazine
Recipes and Roots
The ruins of my garden were visible from the deck for some time, but I had not yet ventured outside. It was time to get a good look, see the extent of the damage, cry my tears and come up with a rebuilding plan.… Continue reading →
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My Father’s Dream Life
Doris von Tettenborn
Published in The Globe and Mail
July 2, 2014
My parents bought their farm in 1958. In 2013, they held the farm auction that sold the dream.
My father worked hard. If farming was rewarded by the hard work put in, my father would have been rewarded with millions in riches, instead of calloused callouses and bent over bones crippled with arthritic joints
In the dreams of my father, one or both of his sons would follow him into the family business; farming is in his blood as deeply as his German heritage.… Continue reading →
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Writing in the Margins
Writing in the Margins is where the story slips off the page and wanders into the back room, timelines bend, space shifts. Authors and characters might share coffee, swap gossip and argue about how the book is going. The rules of the novel don’t apply, time folds, people know they are characters in a book, and anyone can wander in at any time.… Continue reading →
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Ready or Not
The back room smells like paper and coffee. Drafts are piled in uneven towers. A laptop glows on the cluttered table like a spaceship in the middle of a used bookstore.
Doris’s finger hovers over the Publish button.
Grace leans against the filing cabinet, casual as ever, like she’s been waiting for this exact moment. “You’re overthinking again.”… Continue reading →
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Who are These People?
Doris turns to the young girl.“I don’t know you, do I?”
Before the girl can answer, a sharp cry echoes across the room.
Doris spins toward the sound. “A baby?”
Everyone starts talking at once.
The girl answers. “I’m Calliope. I was born with her.” (She points toward the crying.)
“Wait—you haven’t written even the first scene?… Continue reading →
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What Just Happened?
Doris stops. She doesn’t remember this door, or this sign. She reads it again, out loud.
Early Landfill
Room 428
NE Memory Lane
What?
Something flickers in the back corner of her mind. She shrugs it off and yanks back too hard on the knob, expecting resistance. The door swings open easily as she stumbles forward into a puff of dust and catches herself just inside.… Continue reading →
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Sharing My Work
I didn’t plan to share any of this. But then I read Austin Kleon’s ©Show Your Work. He says to pull back the curtain, lay it all out there, messy scribbles and all
Not because it’s polished. Or finished.
Not because I know what I’m doing.
But because I want to show what happens before the tidy version — the rough drafts, the sideways sparks, the moment the pen moves and I have no idea why.… Continue reading →
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