By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills National Making Life Beautiful Day is an opportunity to put a smile on someone’s face. Everyone needs a touch of beauty. Indeed, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford shows us the value of an esthetic experience. What makes your life beautiful may be acts of kindness or encouragement while another

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills I recently introduced you to my June 4th ebook release LONG WALK HOME where three people from separate cultures faced the realities of life in southern Sudan. Today’s post shares my continued passion for the Sudanese people and additional story and character insights. Illiteracy remains rampant, and many are unable to read the Bible. Your purchase

By Barbara Latta @DiAnnMills This week’s guest blogger is Barbara Latta  @BarbaraLatta Observing Memorial Day is not a contemporary ideal. Remembering those who’ve given their lives for others has given us reason to value the sacrifices of courageous men and women. Twenty-two-year-old Marine Corporal Jason Dunham and some of his military buddies sat around their barracks in Iraq swapping stories.

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills In today’s blog, I want to share about my upcoming June 4th ebook release LONG WALK HOME. Long Walk Home is a snapshot of how three people from separate cultures faced the realities of life in southern Sudan. I shed many tears in the writing process, and I imagine you may too as you read it.

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills We’ve all wondered if we’re cut out to write a novel. We experience an unusual or exciting event and ask ourselves, “Could I write a story about this?” Sometimes we dwell on it for days, weeks, months, and even years, still asking ourselves the same question. Why not take a novelist writing quiz to see if

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills Thousands of stories are released each year. So many wonderful and amazing books, and we’ll never be able to read them all. But we try. What’s the fascination for story? Why do we crave the next novel and the next? Here are 7 reasons we love story. Entertainment is the number one reason we love story.

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills April 30th is National Honesty Day. The value of honesty seems like an easy decision for most of us. It’s a virtue we want to incorporate in our lives, and we want our list of virtues to include trustworthy, reliable, upright, honorable, righteous, kind, and the list goes on. “Honesty is the first chapter in the

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills A few weeks ago, I asked my friends on Facebook to share their favorite childhood candy. We had so much fun reminiscing that I decided to research the top-selling candy since the 1950s. Sweet Taste Explosions of the 1950s Anise Bears Atomic Fireballs Turkish Taffy Dad’s Root Beer Barrels Junior Mints Bit-O-Honey Sugar Babies Lemonheads Bubblegum

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills Readers come in all shapes, sizes, and ages. Some prefer short nonfiction pieces while other readers reach for book length. Fiction readers select type and genre of stories according to their taste and whim. Avid readers devour one book after another while many prefer to linger on each word. Word lovers highlight and underline passages that

By Darlene L. Turner @DiAnnMills This week’s guest blogger is Darlene L. Turner @DarleneLTurner Did you know every strand of hair on our heads is dead? So, where does it get its strength? It starts in the papilla (hair bulb), which feeds from cells in our blood vessels deep under the surface. One of my favorite Bible stories is Samson