Learn from the experts: Create a successful blog with our brand new course
WordPress.com is excited to announce our newest offering: a course just for beginning bloggers where you’ll learn everything you need to know about blogging from the most trusted experts in the industry. We have helped millions of blogs get up and running, we know what works, and we want you to to know everything we know. This course provides all the fundamental skills and inspiration you need to get your blog started, an interactive community forum, and content updated annually.
Move Over Hilary Baldwin or, or Eat Your Heart Out Hilaria or, Meet America’s Real Spanish Sweetheart or, You’ve Met Your Match With Maggie Scratch!
Let Me Entertain You, Let Me Make You Smile…
If your iPhone or Android says Maggie Scratch is not available for purchase, ignore it. The paperback is available. The ebook is available. Click here.
Maggie Scratch in the Days When Black Lives Mattered
Roberta Flack
In the days of “Killing Me Softly”
black lives mattered
we knew it
and we felt it
and we sang it
in jukeboxes
the music came out with a coin
and we danced
at concerts
the songs rang out
we were dancing in the streets
we were marching
for justice
and we’re still here
aren’t we?
killing it
with
Dancin in the Street
Maggie Scratch’s Godmother
She has many disguises
and she’s sooooooooo PROLIFIC!!!
These are all her Godchildren!
I’m forever grateful
she took Maggie
under her wing
one day
and made her
a Godchild too!
Sigmund Scratch Purple Heart
“Forty days and forty nights without shelter. After that a boxcar was heaven.”
Sigmund Scratch
The father, Sigmund Scratch, is a character throughout the Maggie Scratch Trilogy.
This is Helen! By Maggie Scratch
Helen Gosch
A Poet? A Potter? A Candlestick Maker?
She’s busy everywhere!
She’ll be there if you need her,
that’s what a friend is for.
Helen, today you are the
“coy mistress.”
I quote from a poem you wrote,
Pulled into the World.
“I can imagine the awe felt
In the hands of all that is warm and beautiful.”
I can imagine it too.
The written word for you is not enough.
You love to get your hands in all kinds of stuff.
You pulled this woman into the world—
you created her on a tray!
Helen of Tray!
The coy mistress…
This must be you!
Maggie Scratch Pays Homage to Friend and Rebel Writer, John Howlett
John, I’m glad I knew you. Writer to writer, you knew me too. You said it took guts. You said to keep working, you said, that’s all we can do. I’m still here doing it and I wish you were too. I had seen your screenplay come alive with If… when I was twenty. That film tweaked my rebellious spirit, and I never forgot it, then I met the likes of you and understood, so this is what a writer can do.
I thank The Guardian, and your brother, Peter, for your write-up on April 8, 2019.
“His admiration of the rebel and actor James Dean and his research for the 1975 TV documentary James Dean: The First American Teenager led him to write a biography of the actor the same year and subsequently a West End musical, Dean, which had notable success in Japan – though less so in London.
Screenplays followed for his own Murder of a Moderate Man (1985), then a serial adaptation of Len Deighton’s Game, Set and Match (1988) for Granada TV, as well as several original radio plays for the BBC. He also co-wrote an outline story for a film, Crusaders, which became the basis of Lindsay Anderson’s award-winning 1968 hit, If…
From the mid-1970s John published a series of novels – mainly thrillers focusing on contemporary issues such as nuclear power, air safety, the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the origins of the Aids crisis. His leftwing sympathies and distrust of the establishment characterised these novels as well as much of his other work in the 80s and 90s.
John’s interest in the first world war, sparked by his teenage conversations with veterans of that conflict, allied to the meticulous research that characterised all of his work, provided the basis for Love of an Unknown Soldier (2010), which became the first of a six-volume saga set against the background of the political turmoil of the first half of the 20th century, covering the rise of fascism, the Spanish civil war and the second world war.
John was born in Leeds to Rex Howlett, a senior civil servant, and his wife, Leila (nee Cagna), who was born and raised in Milan. His early writing work was rooted in his experience as a rebellious student at Tonbridge school in Kent and then Jesus College, Oxford, where he studied history. It was with fellow Tonbridgean David Sherwin that he wrote Crusaders, which satirised public school life.
Later in his career, never having been comfortable with the commercial world of publishing, John found new creative stimulus and freedom through self-publishing and re-issuing his work online.
Living in Stone-in-Oxney, Kent, and then in Rye, East Sussex, with his Italian wife, Ada (nee Finocchiaro), whom he married in 1967, he was an active member of his local communities, renowned for his warm hospitality and strong opinions.”
He is survived by Ada, Isabel and Suzanne, five grandchildren, and his brother, Peter.
The Best Dog in the World
Baloney
“I love to walk in Benimussa with Baloney. We take our time, smelling the earth and the trees and when it’s hot, we can smell gas burning in the sun. In Elkins Park, we always had a dog. I grew up with Ginger Peachy and Georgie Girl and they were lovable, but they were family dogs. Baloney has only Izzy and me. She’s great company. She stays with me and runs away and comes back. She always comes back. Baloney’s famous in Benimussa. She can visit someone in the valley on a rainy day with a note tied on her collar in a plastic bag and come back with a message.”
