Diane Masiello is a part-time writer and a full-time mom, wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law. Like many who are currently part of the “sandwich generation,” – those who still have kids at home but are also taking care of aging parents—she is also trying to find the time to carve out some space for her own passions. In her earlier life she earned a Ph.D. in Education from New York University, and worked as an Instructor of English, then Assistant Professor of English at the University of Tampa. In 2003 she left academia to raise her two daughters—the longest, hardest job she’s ever held, and the most rewarding. During her time in academia she edited and contributed to a variety of academic publications, but her greatest joy was the publication of her first short fantasy story, “The Sunspot,” in CrossTime Science Fiction Anthology Vol. II. She has her own blog, “Afternoons with Coffee Spoons,” which started as a mommy blog but ended when she realized her daughters had become old enough that writing about them without their permission seemed invasive. She has just completed her first young adult fantasy novel, Keeper, and is starting on the maze-like road toward publication. She is thrilled to be a part of The Gloria Sirens and looks forward to the conversations her blog posts may inspire.
Let’s take some of our free time to play at doubting what we are naturally inclined to believe, and believing what we are naturally inclined to doubt. I guarantee that if nothing else, it will help us better argue for what we believe, and against what we doubt, with more reason and passion.
Well, we have a whole new year ahead of us. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all be a little more gentle with each other, a little more loving, and have a little more empathy, and maybe, next year at this time we’d like each other a little more. –Judy Garland
Past and Present I know well; each is a friend and sometimes an enemy to me. But it is the quiet, beckoning Future, an absolute stranger, with whom I have fallen madly in love. –Richelle E. Goodrich
Dear world,
I am excited to be alive in you, and I am thankful for another year.
–Charlotte Eriksson
Midnight on New Year’s Eve is a unique kind of magic where, just for a moment, the past and the future exist at once in the present. Whether we’re aware of it or not, as we countdown together to it, we’re sharing the burden of our history and committing to the promise of tomorrow. –Hillary DePiano
What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven’t even happened yet. –Anne Frank
When you start to think of all the things that should have been better this year, remember the mountains and valleys that got you here….Those moments weren’t in vain. You are not the same, you have grown and you are growing….You are wrapped in boundless grace. And things will get better. There is more to you than yesterday. –Morgan Harper Nichols
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. –Maria Robinson
If I’m not serving, who am I? If I’m not helping others, why am I here?
Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers . . . like hands joined together, like the end and the way. –Ursula K. LeGuin
