Through the Eyes of a Bird: A Book Review of Kiki’s Delivery Service

Kiki’s Delivery Service is the lighthearted, magical tale of a young witch named Kiki who leaves home to make her own way in the world, accompanied by her talkative black cat Jiji. The author, Eiko Kadono, found inspiration for this story thanks to a picture drawn by her daughter, which showed a witch riding a

Boxed Poetry

By Joyce Jacobo [Author’s Note: True Story.] When I was younger I used to thinkPoetry came in boxes Like well-crafted gifts  Always stacked right upOne stanza atop the other Along left-hand margins  Then a teacher showed meIt was possible               To open poems up      That I could play with their forms        Like

A Sketch in Estrangement

By Joyce Jacobo [Author’s Note: Estrangement, or approaching something as if from an unfamiliar perspective, is actually a fun writing technique. Through estrangement, you can ask questions such as how you might describe a microwave if you had never seen one before, or even how you would explain clouds if no one had ever told

Tuna and Peas: A Nostalgic Dish

Food has a certain way of connecting the past to the present. Every dish has some story or sentimental value behind it. I have accumulated many fond memories of baking or cooking meals, using recipes from an old Dutch cookbook that my mother got from her community church while growing up in Michigan. But the

Keyboard Symphony (A Poem)

By Joyce Jacobo [Author’s Note: Inspired by the fact that computer keyboards are musical in their own way, especially while composing stories on them]. Please allow me to create for you on this page                  a brief keyboard symphony         like a concert pianist who performs upon a stage                      to delight an audience composed

Journal Entry #5

Whew! This blog is slowly coming together, helped along by an increased knowledge of WordPress. Now all the menu tabs have at least one posting, and I feel a little better about how the site looks. The problem, though, is that “The Literary Serenity Archives” doesn’t seem to pop up when I google its name.

Game Review: Undertale

Released in 2015 on Steam, Toby Fox’s Undertale is a game about choices and, arguably, freewill. A child in a striped shirt climbs a mountain and falls deep into the underground kingdom of monsters, trapped there by a magical barrier after a war with the human population. Your role as a player is then to

Journal Entry #4

Having a WordPress blog has been a great learning experience, especially when combined with advice gleamed from other bloggers, writing friends, and sources like Writer’s Market. One important thing to keep in mind, it seems, is to continue developing a blog with a specific focus in mind. I started “The Literary Serenity Archives” with the

Journal Entry #3

Ah, there’s so much to do! I plan to scour online job boards for potential freelance writing positions, in an effort to pursue my dream of turning that pursuit into a career. Does anyone have a suggestion for what jobs might be the most helpful to writers who are just starting out? Thank you!

Free E-Books at Project Gutenberg

Website: gutenberg.org The first entry in both the “Online Archives” and “Worthy Causes” sections of this blog is among the most famous of all. Founded in 1971 by Michael Hart, who also invented e-books, Project Gutenberg offers a library of over 60,000 free works in a variety of formats for readers to enjoy. Most of