Tuesday Treasures: Jumping Off the High Dive — Poetry

Jumping Off the High Dive

©2026 by Abbie Johnson Taylor

 

 

 

As the hot summer sun beats down,

stand at the board’s edge,

sensing your closeness to the sky.

Look down momentarily to be sure the way is clear,

not letting the dizzying height alarm you.

Close your eyes – bend your knees – lift off.

Feel the exhilaration of sailing through the air,

The water’s refreshing coolness as you splash down.

You did it!

When my younger brother Andy and I were kids, we often swam at the local park pool that had both a low and a high diving board. Once, Andy decided to try diving off the high dive.

He was an expert swimmer and diver, and just about everyone in the pool knew this. We all watched in anticipation as he climbed the ladder to the high dive. At the edge, he hesitated for the longest time while we urged him on. Finally, he said, “I can’t do it.” Humiliated, he turned and descended the ladder as other kids in line behind him grudgingly climbed down ahead of him.

I was never good at diving. I tried it a few times in college and always bellyflopped. Looking back, I wish I’d tried at least jumping off the high dive instead of ridiculing my little brother for being such a chicken. Maybe Andy wouldn’t have been scared if he’d seen me jumping off the high dive.

This memory came to me back in April during National Poetry Month when someone in my Behind Our Eyes group prompted us to write a poem using a word beginning with the letter J. The word “jump” came to mind, hence the above poem. It was recently published in The Weekly Avocet, and you can download the issue here. I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for reading.


Abbie wears a blue and white V-neck top with different shades of blue from sky to navy that swirl together with the white. She has short, brown hair and rosy cheeks and smiles at the camera against a black background.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description

by Two Pentacles Publishing

 

Announcing Smashwords 18th Annual Summer/Winter Sale

 

I’m excited to announce that my books, Living Vicariously in Wyoming, Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me, The Red Dress, and My Ideal Partner, will be available ABSOLUTELY FREE at Smashwords during their 18th Annual Summer/Winter Sale! This lasts the entire month of July and is a great time to get my books, along with books from other talented indie authors, at bargain prices. You’ll find the sale here. Happy reading!

 

New! Living Vicariously in Wyoming: Stories

Copyright 2025 by Abbie Johnson Taylor

Published independently with the help of DLD Books.

The scene shows an isolated barn off to the right in a snowy field, probably shortly after sunset. The foreground is a mixture of white, blue, and brown shades. Behind the barn is a line of dense, dark trees, many of them evergreens. The sky is the pink one sometimes sees at sunset, and a full moon hangs above the treetops to the left. The title is in plain black letters against the sky with a white glow behind them. The author’s name is in white letters near the bottom of the cover.

Image Description written by Leonore Dvorkin of DLD Books.

 

As defined in the first story, living vicariously means living your life through someone else’s. You’re invited to live vicariously through the lives of the people in these stories. There’s the lawyer who catches his wife in the act with a nun. A college student identifies with a character in a play. A young woman loses her mother and finds her father. And a high school student’s prudish English teacher strenuously objects to a single word in her paper.

In Wyoming, as in any other state, people fall in love, and sometimes relationships are shattered. Accidents, domestic violence, prejudice, and crimes all occur. Lives are torn apart, and people are reunited. Ordinary people deal with everyday and not–so–everyday situations.

The 25 stories in this collection, most of which are set in Wyoming, are about how the various characters resolve their conflicts—or not.

 

Click here for more information and ordering links.

 

About My Monthly Newsletter

 

If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to News from My Corner by sending a blank email to:  newsfrommycorner+subscribe@groups.io .  You’ll receive a confirmation email. Reply to that with another blank message, and you should be good to go. Happy reading!

 

Monday Musings – What’s Your Book About?

As a writer, have you ever been flummoxed when someone asked you what your book was about? I’ve usually launched into a lengthy synopsis. But after listening to a recent episode of the Grammar Girl podcast here, I found a better way to answer this question.

According to the expert interviewed on the podcast, instead of providing a detailed description of the book, the idea is to summarize the book in one sentence, emphasizing its main selling point. For example, if you wrote a cookbook on Mexican cuisine, you might say, “This book will show you how to make great enchiladas in simple steps.

Below, I’ve summarized a few of my books in one sentence, showcasing each book’s main selling point. These books are available free from Smashwords as part of their annual summer/winter sale. Please see below for details.

Living Vicariously in Wyoming is a collection of stories about people in Wyoming who find themselves in ordinary and not-so-ordinary situations. Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me is about a sixteen-year-old girl who gradually matures after her grandmother tells her a shocking family secret. The Red Dress is about how a homemade garment shapes a woman’s life. My Ideal Partner is about how I met and married my late husband, then cared for him after he suffered two paralyzing strokes until his death.

If you’re a published author, I challenge you to come up with one sentence summarizing the main selling point of one of your books and share it in the comments. You might try summarizing an entire series you’ve written. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. I suggest you listen to the above linked podcast episode to get some ideas. I look forward to reading your book summaries and thank you for stopping by.


Abbie wears a blue and white V-neck top with different shades of blue from sky to navy that swirl together with the white. She has short, brown hair and rosy cheeks and smiles at the camera against a black background.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description

by Two Pentacles Publishing

 

Announcing Smashwords 18th Annual Summer/Winter Sale

 

I’m excited to announce that my books, Living Vicariously in Wyoming, Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me, The Red Dress, and My Ideal Partner, will be available ABSOLUTELY FREE at Smashwords during their 18th Annual Summer/Winter Sale! This lasts the entire month of July and is a great time to get my books, along with books from other talented indie authors, at bargain prices. You’ll find the sale here. Happy reading!

 

New! Living Vicariously in Wyoming: Stories

Copyright 2025 by Abbie Johnson Taylor

Published independently with the help of DLD Books.

The scene shows an isolated barn off to the right in a snowy field, probably shortly after sunset. The foreground is a mixture of white, blue, and brown shades. Behind the barn is a line of dense, dark trees, many of them evergreens. The sky is the pink one sometimes sees at sunset, and a full moon hangs above the treetops to the left. The title is in plain black letters against the sky with a white glow behind them. The author’s name is in white letters near the bottom of the cover.

Image Description written by Leonore Dvorkin of DLD Books.

 

As defined in the first story, living vicariously means living your life through someone else’s. You’re invited to live vicariously through the lives of the people in these stories. There’s the lawyer who catches his wife in the act with a nun. A college student identifies with a character in a play. A young woman loses her mother and finds her father. And a high school student’s prudish English teacher strenuously objects to a single word in her paper.

In Wyoming, as in any other state, people fall in love, and sometimes relationships are shattered. Accidents, domestic violence, prejudice, and crimes all occur. Lives are torn apart, and people are reunited. Ordinary people deal with everyday and not–so–everyday situations.

The 25 stories in this collection, most of which are set in Wyoming, are about how the various characters resolve their conflicts—or not.

 

Click here for more information and ordering links.

 

About My Monthly Newsletter

 

If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to News from My Corner by sending a blank email to:  newsfrommycorner+subscribe@groups.io .  You’ll receive a confirmation email. Reply to that with another blank message, and you should be good to go. Happy reading!

 

O Is for Oatmeal

I don’t know where I got my taste for this breakfast cereal, definitely not from my mother, who told me once she hated it, but maybe from my maternal grandmother, who made the best oatmeal. As a ten-year-old in the summer of 1973, I looked forward to starting the day with this treat when I visited Grammy and Granddad Hinkley in Denver, Colorado. Mother preferred fixing cream of wheat, which I also liked.

My mother and grandmother used milk instead of water to make hot cereal. As an adult, I followed their example while preparing instant oatmeal in the microwave.

My late husband Bill also liked oatmeal. I don’t remember him making it before he suffered two paralyzing strokes. But afterward when I became his caregiver, he directed me to make it on the stove, adding cinnamon. After several instances of trial and error, I finally got it to the right consistency. Because the oatmeal stuck to the bottom of the pan, it was hard to wash afterward. A friend suggested using the microwave instead, and that worked like a charm.

You can read more of our story in my memoir, My Ideal Partner, available free from Smashwords this month as part of their annual summer/winter sale. Please see below for details.

Now that Bill is gone, I’m back to using instant oatmeal in the microwave. I like the maple and brown sugar variety and sometimes add maple syrup for more flavor. I’m thankful for this fiber-and-protein-rich breakfast.

This is another installment in my alphabet food gratitude series, inspired by the book, This Is How We Eat, which I reviewed here. What are you grateful for this week? It doesn’t have to be food. Please share in the comments or on your own blog with a link to this post. Thank you for reading. Always be grateful.


Abbie wears a blue and white V-neck top with different shades of blue from sky to navy that swirl together with the white. She has short, brown hair and rosy cheeks and smiles at the camera against a black background.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description

by Two Pentacles Publishing

 

Announcing Smashwords 18th Annual Summer/Winter Sale

 

I’m excited to announce that my books, Living Vicariously in Wyoming, Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me, The Red Dress, and My Ideal Partner, will be available ABSOLUTELY FREE at Smashwords during their 18th Annual Summer/Winter Sale! This lasts the entire month of July and is a great time to get my books, along with books from other talented indie authors, at bargain prices. You’ll find the sale here. Happy reading!

 

New! Living Vicariously in Wyoming: Stories

Copyright 2025 by Abbie Johnson Taylor

Published independently with the help of DLD Books.

The scene shows an isolated barn off to the right in a snowy field, probably shortly after sunset. The foreground is a mixture of white, blue, and brown shades. Behind the barn is a line of dense, dark trees, many of them evergreens. The sky is the pink one sometimes sees at sunset, and a full moon hangs above the treetops to the left. The title is in plain black letters against the sky with a white glow behind them. The author’s name is in white letters near the bottom of the cover.

Image Description written by Leonore Dvorkin of DLD Books.

 

As defined in the first story, living vicariously means living your life through someone else’s. You’re invited to live vicariously through the lives of the people in these stories. There’s the lawyer who catches his wife in the act with a nun. A college student identifies with a character in a play. A young woman loses her mother and finds her father. And a high school student’s prudish English teacher strenuously objects to a single word in her paper.

In Wyoming, as in any other state, people fall in love, and sometimes relationships are shattered. Accidents, domestic violence, prejudice, and crimes all occur. Lives are torn apart, and people are reunited. Ordinary people deal with everyday and not–so–everyday situations.

The 25 stories in this collection, most of which are set in Wyoming, are about how the various characters resolve their conflicts—or not.

 

Click here for more information and ordering links.

 

About My Monthly Newsletter

 

If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to News from My Corner by sending a blank email to:  newsfrommycorner+subscribe@groups.io .  You’ll receive a confirmation email. Reply to that with another blank message, and you should be good to go. Happy reading!

 

Poetic Gifts: My Review of Mingled Voices 10

From Amazon

 

MINGLED VOICES 10 contains the work of some sixty poets. The one hundred and twenty or so poems were selected from those entered for the International Proverse Poetry Prize in 2025, the tenth such annual international competition administered from Hong Kong.

The International Proverse Poetry Prize was jointly founded in 2016 by Dr Gillian Bickley and Dr Verner Bickley, MBE, in association with the annual international Proverse Prize for unpublished book-length fiction, non-fiction or poetry, submitted in English, which they also founded, in 2008.

Poems could be submitted on any subject or topic, chosen by each poet, or on the subject selected for 2025 by the Administrators, “The Gift” (interpreted in any way each writer chose). There was a free choice of interpretation, form and style.

Included in the anthology are the poems that won the first, second, and third prizes. Selection to appear in the anthology was also awarded as a prize by the judges. This year, special mention is additionally made of one of these poets for a group of poems submitted.

Poems were submitted from around the world by writers with a variety of previous writing experience.

Brief biographies of all those whose work is represented in Mingled Voices 10 are included in the anthology as well as authors’ background notes on most of the poems.

 

Amazon.com: Mingled Voices 10: International Proverse Poetry Prize Anthology 2025 (Mingled Voices: International Proverse Poetry Prize Anthologies) eBook : Bickley, Gillian and Verner, Nagrath, Tanusha, Blanco, Maria, Al-Sofi, Joy, Beaumier, Gary, Linstroth, J.P., Wood, Graham, Moran, Daniel, Streeter, Jeffrey, Lowe, Charles: Kindle Store

 

My 4-Star Review

 

I’m proud to have poems published in this anthology, along with four other authors from my Behind Our Eyes writing group: Annie Chiappetta, Lynda McKinney Lambert, and Natalie Warren. I enjoyed reading their work and many other poems here.

I like how work by Terry Miller and others reflects the anthology’s gift theme.      I can appreciate Daniel Thomas Moran’s “Too Much At Any Price,” in which he talks about how difficult it can be to find older books. Having lost my grandparents, parents, and husband, I can relate to the poetry of Joann a Radwańska-Williams, and Gary Beaumier. I’m a devotee of classical music, and George Watt’s “The Point of Claves in Danzon No. 2” resonated with me.

I found the authors’ background notes interesting, but many of the poems could have spoken for themselves. The author biographies are nice but should have been included below each one’s poem(s) instead of at the end, allowing readers to more easily connect with poets after reading their work.

Like the other nine books in the series, this collection offers something for everyone. Some poems are dark and abstract while others are lighthearted and straightforward. If this is the type of poetry collection you enjoy reading, I highly recommend Mingled Voices 10. Thank you for visiting.


Abbie wears a blue and white V-neck top with different shades of blue from sky to navy that swirl together with the white. She has short, brown hair and rosy cheeks and smiles at the camera against a black background.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description

by Two Pentacles Publishing

 

Announcing Smashwords 18th Annual Summer/Winter Sale

 

I’m excited to announce that my books, Living Vicariously in Wyoming, Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me, The Red Dress, and My Ideal Partner, will be available ABSOLUTELY FREE at Smashwords during their 18th Annual Summer/Winter Sale! This lasts the entire month of July and is a great time to get my books, along with books from other talented indie authors, at bargain prices. You’ll find the sale here. Happy reading!

 

New! Living Vicariously in Wyoming: Stories

Copyright 2025 by Abbie Johnson Taylor

Published independently with the help of DLD Books.

The scene shows an isolated barn off to the right in a snowy field, probably shortly after sunset. The foreground is a mixture of white, blue, and brown shades. Behind the barn is a line of dense, dark trees, many of them evergreens. The sky is the pink one sometimes sees at sunset, and a full moon hangs above the treetops to the left. The title is in plain black letters against the sky with a white glow behind them. The author’s name is in white letters near the bottom of the cover.

Image Description written by Leonore Dvorkin of DLD Books.

 

As defined in the first story, living vicariously means living your life through someone else’s. You’re invited to live vicariously through the lives of the people in these stories. There’s the lawyer who catches his wife in the act with a nun. A college student identifies with a character in a play. A young woman loses her mother and finds her father. And a high school student’s prudish English teacher strenuously objects to a single word in her paper.

In Wyoming, as in any other state, people fall in love, and sometimes relationships are shattered. Accidents, domestic violence, prejudice, and crimes all occur. Lives are torn apart, and people are reunited. Ordinary people deal with everyday and not–so–everyday situations.

The 25 stories in this collection, most of which are set in Wyoming, are about how the various characters resolve their conflicts—or not.

 

Click here for more information and ordering links.

 

About My Monthly Newsletter

 

If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to News from My Corner by sending a blank email to:  newsfrommycorner+subscribe@groups.io .  You’ll receive a confirmation email. Reply to that with another blank message, and you should be good to go. Happy reading!

 

Discussing an Unexpected Marriage Proposal: A Six-Sentence Excerpt from My Ideal Partner

He laughed. I laughed. He said, “What do you think?”

“I was planning to write you a letter. I’d like to come down to Fowler this summer to see if I’d like living with you there.”

After a long pause, he said, “Actually, I’m thinking of moving to Sheridan.”

Thanks to GirlieOnTheEdge for inspiring me to share the above excerpt from my memoir, My Ideal Partner, with this week’s six-sentence story prompt in which the given word is “plan.” By the way, My Ideal Partner and three of my other books are available free from Smashwords this month as part of the 18th annual Summer/Winter sale. Please see below for details.

If you’d like to write something in exactly six sentences, using the word or a form of it at least once, you can share in the comments or click below to join the fun and read other six-sentence creations. Thank you for visiting.

 

InLinkz – Linkups & Link Parties for Bloggers


Abbie wears a blue and white V-neck top with different shades of blue from sky to navy that swirl together with the white. She has short, brown hair and rosy cheeks and smiles at the camera against a black background.

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description

by Two Pentacles Publishing

 

Announcing Smashwords 18th Annual Summer/Winter Sale

 

I’m excited to announce that my books, Living Vicariously in Wyoming, Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me, The Red Dress, and My Ideal Partner, will be available ABSOLUTELY FREE at Smashwords during their 18th Annual Summer/Winter Sale! This lasts the entire month of July and is a great time to get my books, along with books from other talented indie authors, at bargain prices. You’ll find the sale here. Happy reading!

 

New! Living Vicariously in Wyoming: Stories

Copyright 2025 by Abbie Johnson Taylor

Published independently with the help of DLD Books.

The scene shows an isolated barn off to the right in a snowy field, probably shortly after sunset. The foreground is a mixture of white, blue, and brown shades. Behind the barn is a line of dense, dark trees, many of them evergreens. The sky is the pink one sometimes sees at sunset, and a full moon hangs above the treetops to the left. The title is in plain black letters against the sky with a white glow behind them. The author’s name is in white letters near the bottom of the cover.

Image Description written by Leonore Dvorkin of DLD Books.

 

As defined in the first story, living vicariously means living your life through someone else’s. You’re invited to live vicariously through the lives of the people in these stories. There’s the lawyer who catches his wife in the act with a nun. A college student identifies with a character in a play. A young woman loses her mother and finds her father. And a high school student’s prudish English teacher strenuously objects to a single word in her paper.

In Wyoming, as in any other state, people fall in love, and sometimes relationships are shattered. Accidents, domestic violence, prejudice, and crimes all occur. Lives are torn apart, and people are reunited. Ordinary people deal with everyday and not–so–everyday situations.

The 25 stories in this collection, most of which are set in Wyoming, are about how the various characters resolve their conflicts—or not.

 

Click here for more information and ordering links.

 

About My Monthly Newsletter

 

If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to News from My Corner by sending a blank email to:  newsfrommycorner+subscribe@groups.io .  You’ll receive a confirmation email. Reply to that with another blank message, and you should be good to go. Happy reading!