12, Rue Cortot, Montmartre, Paris. This house in Montmartre housed a community of Impressionist painters and writers. © Laurel Decher, 2013. Have you noticed all
This tiny bakery in the Netherlands, Better Bagels, sells the real thing. It also has Joe the Slicer, a 90 km/hour table saw for bagels.
How do you know what your hero is capable of? A modernistic St. Martin cuts his cloak in half to share with a poor man. Mainz, Germany. Craft books like The Negative Trait Thesaurus and The Positive Trait Thesaurus can help you build strong characters.
This character is walking right off this building into a story. Statue on the front of the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany. © Laurel Decher,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xY2JSv3t0k Recently, my husband and I watched a movie version of Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “WHO AM I THIS TIME?” with Susan Sarandon and Christopher
New neighbor changes the rhythm of our walks. ©Laurel Decher, 2016. (1) Every culture has its own heartbeat. On the weekend, I practiced a new
St. Stephan’s church in Mainz, Germany has stunning stained glass windows. The church burned on February 27, 1945 and Marc Chagall designed most of the current windows in the late 1970’s.
The windows show love stories of all kinds: Colorful people and angels float in a sea of blue glass. In light of the Holocaust, I was especially touched by the window of Abraham pleading with three angels to spare Sodom and Gomorrah.
A writing and interior design metaphor. My life unintentionally provided me with another writing metaphor this weekend. We moved to Germany three years ago and
Roman pipeline to convent to farm. Gut Schillingskapellen, Dünstekoven. © Laurel Decher, 2016. In the small village of Swisstal-Dünstekoven, a one-time convent was built solely
In the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Michelle Kwan skated an amazing and beautiful program without apparent effort. What touched me most about this performance was
Fantastic tree in the botanical garden. Orto Botanico, Palermo, Sicily. © Laurel Decher, 2016. Planting a tree in Palermo a few hundred years ago means
500 olive trees. Sciacca, Sicily. © Laurel Decher, 2016. I recently came across another inspiring example of using your inheritance to create something new. Alessandro
