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Elizabeth Van Tassel

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The Unexpected Dazzling Swim Class

Jan 11, 2019

Everyone moved side to side, warming up as dancers before a ballet or jazz class. A few stretched, but mainly tried not to splash their neighbor too much. The music started and was festive with accents from the 1980s. It lifted us all with a can-do attitude. But then they added weights… We all groaned and continued, and laughed. All except a very tall senior person, who I call the General, who was at the back of the class looking serious and sedate. It was my second week back at water aerobics here in the Bay Area and I watched… 

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Cherish Precious Moments This Christmas

Dec 13, 2018

I wanted to wish you a wonderful holiday season and Christmas joy upon you and yours. I’ve been so grateful for each of you and am wishing I could have you over for coffee and sit a while together. I love Christmas and have been setting out little special corners of remembrances and happy, even silly things, to bring a smile. I’ve got five things to consider this month. Embrace the crazy Between a school play and several concerts for my son who loves music, we’ve been kept pretty busy. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when that happens. One day,… 

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Favorite Reads of 2018

Nov 29, 2018

The Not-To-Miss Books, Great Gift Ideas, and Favorite Reads for Middle Graders I’m so excited to share some of my favorite reads to add to your Christmas list for boys and girls ages eight to thirteen years. One of my pet peeves is hearing parents at school say their kids don’t like to read. I think, really, they may just not have found their niche. My favorite ones are fantasy, comedy, mysteries, and historical fiction. I’ll highlight some series with new releases and favorites in this blog post so you can shop for your kids this holiday season. Ahoy, Pirates!… 

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The Air We Breathe – Caught In The Bay Area Smoke Out

Nov 21, 2018

Our family lives in Northern California in the Bay Area and we’ve been caught in an unusual situation, covered with smoke. As wildfire survivors who lost our home and all our possessions eleven years ago, it’s been a challenging couple of weeks as smoke from the Camp Fire rolled in and, like a stealthy dragon, wound its tail around our beautiful area. I was already having trouble with the news and praying fervently for friends’ relatives who were threatened in different fires throughout California. But suddenly… We awoke hearing sirens and seeing complete smoke outside the windows on a Saturday… 

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Flashback Book Launch Event with Author Shannon Messenger

Nov 18, 2018

Recently, author Shannon Messenger, who writes the wonderful Keeper of the Lost Cities series began her book launch tour for her book Flashback. I was excited to meet up with a friend in our MG Lunch Bunch readers group and enjoy Messenger’s talk sponsored by Kepler’s Literary Foundation. I had met and interviewed her a couple of years ago (you can see the interview HERE) and was so very delighted to watch the mounting excitement as kids and parents entered the room. I sat next to a group of middle-school aged girls who were carrying sparkly backpacks and had home-made… 

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Inspiring Emerald Gem Discovery

Oct 30, 2018

There’s been some neat discoveries coming up on my radar as a gemologist, and I love to collect these tidbits for inspiration for stories, especially if it involves emeralds. I thought you’d like to share some of the most dramatic ones of late. My love of emeralds Emeralds have always fascinated me, even before I became a gemologist. I first encountered them when I was on a business trip for a large, international firm to Colombia years ago when they had travel warnings—not for weather but for the volatile situation with the drug cartels and drug czars in the area…. 

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Happy Birthday Narnia and Everything C.S. Lewis

Oct 17, 2018

In honor of it being the birthday of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and Narnia, which is sixty-eight years old this week, under the magical gazebo for MMGM I wanted to share some memories of my summer C.S. Lewis study abroad program. I also have some great Narnia-themed products and books to share. When I was a young girl, I discovered the world of Narnia and wonderful books by C.S. Lewis, never suspecting that those wondrous moments stepping through the wardrobe would shape my writing and love for portal fantasy stories. I didn’t know about the spiritual allegory… 

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Fall Delights! What’s coming from Thorn & Vine

Oct 1, 2018

I’ve been collecting great ideas for a wonderful fall series and wanted to give you updates about what to expect and some recent happenings! Due to a death in the family and some tech hiccups, the blog has been a bit sporadic. Thanks for your patience as we fixed everything! And nurtured our family for a while. Sometimes it’s important to slow down and simplify things while caring for one another. The good news, now, is I will share great content and hopefully some neat guest authors this fall. From entertaining posts we’re looking at changes at Disneyland (what will… 

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Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief among gems and jewelry books with gemologist Elizabeth Van Tassel

Happy Birthday Percy Jackson And The Jewelry Of The Gods

Aug 19, 2018

How meeting Percy Jackson shaped a generation of tween adventure books AND What the jewelry of the Greek and Roman gods might have looked like   I’ll never forget the first time I read Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief. Oh, I loved that scene in the museum where everything goes wrong and the hero side of an awkward kid emerges with lots of magic and mythological characters coming to life. And the fact that the story continued with other novels and took us through all kinds of adventures meeting making real and mythic history come to life was so… 

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All the beauties including historic necklace, my character inspirations and setting for my middle grade fantasy with author Elizabeth Van Tassel

Pitch Wars 2018 #BOOSTMYBIO

Jul 31, 2018

My WIP: LAUREN GOLDRAY AND THE CRYSTAL TIMESCOPE Middle Grade Fantasy This is my entry for #BoostMyBio for Pitch Wars 2018. Thank you to Auggie for hosting this great time to visit and meet other aspiring authors and get more involved in the fun of Pitch Wars, and everyone who makes this such a super event. About my WIP: When I was in gemology school (at the Gemological Institute of America – GIA) we studied the history of gems. I kept being intrigued that there were still unsolved mysteries about certain centuries of techniques and gems with special powers or… 

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