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If It Works for Gawande
Recently I caught a TED talk by one of my favorite authors, Atul Gawande. He spoke about the positive effects of having OR teams use a checklist before starting a procedure. He had gone to airline pilots to help him and his team design the list. Flyers have long used pre-flight checklists. The surgical results were dramatic in terms…
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Envy, Jealousy & Covetousness
Okay, this is, sort of, the blog I posted by mistake earlier in the week. I pushed publish when I meant save. The piece had not yet been sauced and seasoned, not yet ready for consumption. Once it had left my hands, I saw no option but to discard the whole thing. So I’m trying to…
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Pickled Poem
The first poem I remember writing was an ugly little thing, sort of like the bird house a kid makes at day camp, or the drawing a three year old slaps under a magnet on the refrigerator, hoping for greater things to come. The message of that poem was how impossible it would be to resurrect a specimen long…
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Not Exactly the Indy 500, but . . .
Everyone who reads this blog knows that I believe in writers’ groups. We learn from and lean on each other for encouragement, tips, commiseration. I learned something simple and wonderful at Lighthouse Writers Workshop last Friday during a live interview with freelance writer Scott Carney (http://www.scottcarney.com/). Here’s how I’m using his advice: Write a minimum…
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Where Do Books Come From?
When I was little, books were there. They are still there, here, everywhere. My earliest reading memory is of Dick, Jane, Spot, Puff and Sally. Bored out of my mind, I never knew which page I was supposed to read standing by my desk. I’d already read the whole book and got no joy from…
Karen Douglass, Author 