Thank you for your interest in my titles! I appreciate you stopping by to take a look. I have a variety of novels with a whimsical and scientific twist along with a dash of romance.
Most of my novels can be found at this site, which supports local bookstores. But shop around. There are plenty of places to find them.
What do I have to offer?
My latest–Snakes in the Class.
At Manster College, monster professors guide students in the fine art of fitting into human society—easier said than done.
Professor Gormley Grimn didn’t choose the Gorgon life—the Gorgon life chose her…sort of. When she was cursed by the jealous fiancée of her study partner, Gormley fled, leaving those she loved behind to become a professor of chemistry at Manster College.
It’s a safely secluded life, devoid of sex—until she falls into a lusty affair with Dean Ormr Snaakemon, a half smooth-skinned man, half smooth-scaled snake, and one hundred percent hottie. Life as a cursed Gorgon finally doesn’t seem so bad. But Gormley’s a lover, not a killer.
When the local Purity League vows to stamp out all monsters, she’s pushed to a decision. Should she and her students stick with her no-killing principles, or join forces with the anti-Purity League Knobbers—a group of demigods, including the woman who cursed her?
When all you need is love and a college education, does anything make fighting worth it?
Snakes in the Class is a monster romance novel featuring steamy snakes and a touching HEA. It is the first book in the Monster College Chronicles series.
I heard an interesting lecture at Central College on MLK Day. Jaime Schultz, professor of kinesiology at Penn State, talked about the perils and triumphs of black football players in Iowa during the time of segregation. Since I’m from a family of football and rugby players and fans, this story caught my attention.
Although school segregation ended in 1954, it wasn’t until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that segregation became illegal. The black players I’m going to highlight were at Iowa colleges between 1918-1951. During this era, players wore soft leather helmets or sometimes wore no helmet at all. Pads were made from quilted materials. (Here is a source.) Football has always been rough, but we’ve made strides in safety.
To even be allowed to play at a white school, black players had to be the best so it’s no surprise that you may have heard some of these names.
Slater Hall at the U of Iowa was named for Iowa’s first black All American. Ironically, he wouldn’t have been allowed to live on campus at the time due to segregation. He and his brother had to live in an apartment near campus. Fred Slater, from Clinton, Iowa, went on to play in the NFL and later graduated from the U of Iowa law school. He became an attorney and a judge in Chicago. He played for Iowa 1918-1921, leading Iowa to a Big Ten Championship and earning All-American Honors.
Jack Trice was a star player who was trampled to death during a football game between Iowa State and Minnesota in 1923. Did racism contribute to his death or was it a lack of safety rules and equipment? No one would say. Iowa State students and a journalist, Donard Kaul, kept his name and memory alive until Iowa State named their stadium after him. It wasn’t an easy task and took until 1997 to become reality. Click the link for more.
Ozzie Simmons was an Iowa running back, 1934-36. He was black so his own team wouldn’t block for him. (My son and some grandsons were/are running backs and this horrifies me.) He was often punched by opposing players during games. Despite lack of support from his team, Ozzie lead After Ozzie took a beating in a poorly refereed game against Minnesota, Iowa Governor Clyde Herring wouldn’t let them forget it. He brought it up before the next game and urged Iowa fans to take matters into their own hands: “if the officials stand for any rough tactics like Minnesota used last year, I’m sure the crowd won’t.” The two governors traded barbes until the Minnesota governor promised a clean game and decided to wager a hog on the game. Iowa lost and the hog, Floyd, from Rosedale, Iowa, was given to Minnesota. Sadly, Floyd died of hog cholera and was replaced by a statue. Ozzie wasn’t allowed to play in the NFL because it of racial prejudice. Ozzie Simmons went on to become a PE teacher in Illinois and by all accounts lived a long and happy life..
In 1951, Johnny Bright, a star player at Drake, was assaulted on the field. Fortunately, the media was there to capture it all. Bright’s jaw was broken by an Oklahoma player even though he wasn’t carrying the ball. Bright he refused to play football in the Unites States after this, moving to and playing in Canada. The man who hit him still denies it was racially motivated and says it was legal but the facts don’t back him up. He even cursed about the media. Bright became a Canadian citizen, a teacher, a principal and a coach. Drake stood by their player and withdrew from the conference over the incident. The university later retired Bright’s jersey and named the football field after him. This incident also prompted the addition of faceguards on football helmets. Bright said he was glad his injury made the NCAA more concerned about player safety, but he personally never felt that the United States was a safe place after this. Twenty-two years after Bright’s death, Oklahoma State apologized to Drake for the incident.
I didn’t know much of this history. My dad and his father were football players during the time period of the players mentioned and were keenly aware of and spoke out against racial injustice. As the speaker, Jaime Schultz, said, the first step towards equality is awareness of inequality. Not to mention, it’s good for all of us to know that not everyone in this world plays fair. As Johnny Bright pointed out, being alerted to the toxic prejudices helped everyone in football. Do we really want to erode Civil Rights?
Nitrates are water soluble and that’s where they pose damage to populations. They are not hard for a chemist or even an amateur to detect but getting to the polluted waterways isn’t easy. Iowa has a sensor network but since ignorance is bliss for some of our elected officials, it is not going to be funded beginning this July. Also, local elected officials have claimed that geese are the source of the pollution (probably at least true in part) and that the majority of the local lake water is not polluted—only the shoreline where people take water samples (and go swimming). A few drones can at least overcome some of our misconceptions and shoreline sampling issues.
6. Smiling Medusa artifact has been found in Amastris, Turkey. I’m a Medusa fan. A gorgon professor is part of my Monster College Chronicles series. Book 2, Monsters Play the Field, has been accepted for publication. All you monster romance and dark academia fans–I’ll keep you posted!
7. A long-lost coffee bean has been rediscovered in Sierra Leone. Coffea stenophylla produces coffee that’s “sweet with notes of chocolate and caramel and a hint of jasmine.” In addition to containing our favorite drug—caffeine—it also holds another stimulant, theacrine. It can grow at warmer temperatures, too. (read about it here and here.)
2. July was one of the worst flooding seasons in global history. At last 134 people were killed in Texas, 34 in China,69 in the Himalayas, and in early August, hundreds were missing in Pakistan and India. The chemistry of why flash flooding is getting worse is outlined here. “Though floods naturally occur, increased moisture and rising temperatures from climate change are in some cases supercharging storms. According to a study in Nature, between 2020 and 2100, the size of the global population exposed to flood hazards is estimated to increase by 15.8%.”
5. The mysterious Shroud of Turin has captivated Christians for a long time. Is it really the burial garment laid over Jesus following his crucifixion? Radiocarbon dating has been inconclusive. Now, the art world steps forward to suggest that the image was made from a statue and not a body.
6. Trump is dismantling science in the US . Why do we have a government that no longer serves the people and our futures? Because this is the will of at least one political party.
A well-publicized recall of frozen foods due to bacterial contamination lead a friend to ask a question: why didn’t the freezing kill the bacteria?
My first thought was the somewhat well-known idea (among science types) that freezing doesn’t kill the bacteria, only slows it down. The answer, however, is more complex.
It’s logical to think that putting food into the freezer or buying frozen foods will cut down on the bacteria and thus the food poisoning. However, freezing doesn’t kill the bacteria in foods.Freezing and thawing cycles can reduce the number of bacteria but doesn’t kill them all. Bacteria can respond to freezing by producing a type of antifreeze or by forming a biofilm. The susceptibility of the bacteria to freezing varies across the type of bacteria correlates to the freezing and thawing cycles as well.
In a study of soil bacteria exposed to freezing and thawing conditions, freezing reduced the number of bacteria but did not totally eliminate them. When numerous freezing and thawing events occurred, damage to the bacterial colonies was significant. However, cold-resistant bacteria developed. Quick freezing and thawing reduced bacterial levels less than slow freezing and thawing. This was due to the type of ice formed—slow freezing produces larger ice crystals which are more damaging to bacteria. What does this have to do with a frozen food recall? Consumers don’t like big ice crystals and often additives such as xanthan gum are added to food to prevent them. ( reference here)
Listeria grows best under warm conditions but even continues to grow under refrigeration. It isn’t killed by freezing and in fact, is one of the most freeze resistant bacteria around. Listeria will cause flu-like symptoms and can even lead to seizures since it primarily attacks the central nervous system. It can be deadly for older people, immunocompromised folks, and infants. The mortality rate is as high as 20% in vulnerable populations. It causes miscarriages and stillbirths, too.
Food poisoning is the most common way to encounter Listeria. Listeria is a persistent bacteria and commonly found in slaughter houses, especially on conveyor belts for carcasses. Listeria forms a biofilm, often working symbiotically with other bacteria to strengthen this pervasive film. (reference)
One way for you to keep ahead of Listeria is to keep your refrigerator clean and to wipe down surfaces and cutting tools after use. Washing produce with warm water before eating it is another recommendation, although produce is not major carrier for Listeria. Use leftovers within three to four days and don’t just let them sit in there until you find time to throw them out. Toss them immediately—they could contaminate other food. Be sure to cook foods thoroughly, even leftovers. (reference)
HPV —human papillomavirus—has been around a long time. Modern humans possibly even gave it to the Neanderthals. HPV is a category of viruses, some of which cause genital and throat cancers. It’s responsible for most cervical, mouth, and throat cancers. It spreads most easily through sexual contact but can theoretically be spread simply by contact with surfaces. Around 80% of sexually active humans will carry a form of HPV at some point in their lives.
Not all forms of HPV cause cancer, although they do cause warts. Some humans, especially younger people, will clear the virus on their own. Many HPV infections cause no symptoms at all. Sometimes cancer is the first and only symptom. Vaccines for HPV have been available since 2006. They prevent infection from the more deadly, cancer promoting forms of HPV.
Scientists recently discovered that Otzi, Europe’s most famous mummy, carried a deadly form of HPV, HPV 16. Otzi, also known as the Iceman, is 5000 years old, and was discovered frozen in the alps in 1991.
I’m interested in Otzi because a DNA test revealed that he and I had the same mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited from the mother in nearly all animals. Thus, at one point, Otzi and I were related. Otzi and I also, allegedly, have the same mitochondrial DNA as Mary Magdalene.
I’m writing a novel series about a college for monsters from the perspective of the faculty and this gives me a reason to reflect on what college is about and what creates stress for faculty.
If you look up what colleges do, you’ll read that they are intended to give broad training in arts, humanities, and sciences with an emphasis on intellectual development. Intellectual development strengthens critical thinking skills and personal growth, or at least we can hope.
Faculty guide students in these pursuits. Despite what outsiders will tell you, respecting student differences of opinion is important to colleges and their faculty in creating an environment where learning can take place. However, students need to learn the material.
You’ve probably heard about outside groups which put professors on watch lists. You can scroll through these watch lists and find out that transgressions might include calling out racism, signing a petition, and recognition of pronouns. There might be one incident, reported on a social media platform, and that will be enough to put the offending professor on a list of the damned.
However, outside groups maybe more covert (as reported by students) and direct their members on how to fill out faculty evaluations. There are also rate my prof sites which are not monitored for accuracy and might even feature evaluations for courses the professor doesn’t teach.
Teachers put up with a lot of BS and not much comes from students.
When you consider that the brain remains in adolescence until the age of 30, it can be reasonable to view these outside groups as predatory. They encourage students to not trust or communicate with their professors and to put faith in their group instead. Some even call themselves ministries. There is one thing they lack: scholarship.
The University of Iowa is my alma mater and like many, I’m not enthused by this center. It seems somewhat haphazard, not particularly scholarly, and possibly too debate focused. Mostly what leads me to these opinions, besides its description and current course offerings, is what those who are involved have to say. Another red flag is that it was dictated by the Legislature, not scholars. It isn’t even an original idea.
At a recent inaugural event paid for by the public, lots of chests were beaten and accusations made. The whole idea of teaching civics isn’t bad, it’s done in intermediate school, high school and even college. The unscholarly part is accusations that the liberals are somehow terrible and need to be replaced. This makes the whole “freedom” idea confusing. At the recent celebratory event, a campus shooting was given as an example of conservative speech being censored but a professor didn’t shoot the man.
Another antecdote hinting at a huge bias problem in higher ed was “the example of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who stepped down from his Harvard University presidency after suggesting women were less represented in STEM fields because of “intrinsic aptitude.” Summers, who was teaching at Harvard …has stepped away from the university again due to his ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.” (quote is from here.) Personally, sticking up for that particular man doesn’t cast a good light on intellectual freedom.
At the inaugural event (paid for by taxpayers) a speaker from the American Enterprise Institute, a group that advocates for trickle-down economics and limited regulations, was quoted thus,: Katz separated those responsible for higher education’s issues into two categories — “sheep” and “crazies.” The sheep are “almost everybody,” he said, with the crazies at the fringes of both ends of the political and ideological spectrums. Nearly all university faculty fall into the sheep category, and if they follow a bad idea things can, and have, gone very wrong. Crazies used to be a small minority of academic units, Katz said, but now there are more of them and they are “malevolent.”“Don’t hire crazies, don’t be a sheep, and let’s hope that the Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa can fix whatever problems there are,” Katz said.
What grade would you get if you gave a speech like that in high school or college?
To quote a student at the event, the speakers didn’t “provide any sort of solid, consistent argument to support the creation of the center.” And “Other(s)… have expressed disappointment in the center’s structure, as its director will have near-total control of hiring professors, inviting guest speakers and other actions…I think that it’s very clear that folks here are not actually interested in freedom of expression,”
As a parent or student paying tuition for scholarship, intellectual development, and training, I’d be damn mad about these speakers and their baseless claims. I’d be mad about outside organizations preying on students and watch-listing professors.
We’re at the anniversary of the deadliest global chemical disaster, harming more than half a million people in Bhopal, India . Most here in the US have forgotten it, although the perpetrator was a US company. On December 4,1984, in the dead of night, a Union Carbide pesticide factory making Sevin, in the Vijay Nagar neighborhood released a cloud of toxic methylisocyanate gas. The cause was absent and out of order safety systems which allowed components for the pesticide to mix and create an out of control, deadly reaction. The decisions to store large amount of toxins on site and to disable the safety systems were done as cost saving measures.
The heavy, odorless gas drifted through homes and across streets, waking people not with the smell but with the strangling effects of a respiratory poison. Within three days, 3,000 people and numerous animals were dead. The horror didn’t end there. Around 20,000 people slowly died from the toxin and the effects persist to this day.
A statue of a mother covering her burned eyes and holding her dead infant commemorates the tragedy but has the lesson been learned? The people are still suffering.
Many years ago, the elected officials of Marion County, Iowa held meeting with the citizens. They were propaganda sessions disguised as town halls. They didn’t ask us about what we wanted but told us what we should be thinking.
One of the elected ones, Senator McKinley, had two things he liked to push. One was something obscure about a valve on gas tanks that demonstrated how ridiculous regulations were. The other was private prisons.
He was all for the prisons and called them a growth industry. Senator McKinley has faded from the news, although his wife posts conservative stuff on Facebook from time to time. Perhaps he is busy counting his money because across the USA, we’re approaching peak private prison. Instead of paying scientists to cure cancer or funding weather prediction and reports, we are paying the private prison industry to lock people up. Yes, imprisoning people is big business and we taxpayers are the ones losing out. Look at it this way: Every time a Republican finds an enemy, a privatizer gets a payout. And you get a DOGE cut to your services and perks of being a citizen.
There were over 60,000 people in 186 ICE detention facilities this year. It’s estimated that 70% of these people committed no crime at all, not even a misdemeanor.
Here is a map of the facilities and ones being built. (Thank you Mother Jones and yes, I did renew my subscription.)
An important thing for us taxpayers to know is who is making bank from these lock-ups?
Core Civic and GEO Group are among the possibly familiar names. As Senator McKinnley alluded to, these companies are not new.
Another profiteer, Core Civic, is reopening closed prisons in Oklahoma and New Jersey, and several other states, banking on more prisoners and more money thanks to the renewed ICE funding.
In early April, hundreds of military and tech companies exhibited their products at the Border Security Expo, which brought “government leaders, law enforcement officials, and industry innovators” together. During the two-day event in Phoenix, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons said he would like ICE to operate more like a business: “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.” He added that “the badge and guns” should do “the badge-and-gun stuff, everything else, let’s contract out.”
Let it sink in: Amazon Prime but with human beings. And you are paying the monthly rate.
Remember when I went to the US Virgin Islands? It was a beautiful slice of paradise. You can read about it here and see lovely photos of a little bay where I attempted snorkeling. This bay is home to turtles, octopi, barracuda, spotted eagle rays, and tropical fish. Now it’s home to something else.
Here’s that bay recently. Are those battleships? Yes, they are.
Will the USVI be able to return to paradise once more? Here’s the rub, or more precisely, the map that tells the tale.
Venezuela has oil, lots of it, along with plenty of problems, including an autocrat who won’t leave power, which I’m not knowledgeable enough to sift through. But being a chemist, I’m focusing on the “war on drugs” and calling BS.
The US is having a just say no to drugs moment and although research shows that decriminalizing is the best way to tackle such a crisis, we are gathering war machines in paradise instead, claiming that Venezuela is the source of illegal drugs in the US. It seems about as honest as Portland being a war zone.
Generic drugs contain the same active ingredient as name brand drugs but for the rest of the pill, the standards do not apply. Generic drugs were approved for use in the US in the dubious year of 1984 and the companies that make them (and our insurance companies) have been cutting costs ever since. Note that the premiums have never gone down. One way to cut costs (and quality inspections and environmental concerns) is to move production overseas. Bacteria, mold, and carcinogens are among the lovely things found in generic pharmaceuticals.
Recently, my doctor prescribed a medication as a preventative. I noticed it was from place with frequent quality control issues—Dr. Reddy’s lab in India. This place makes plenty of common generic drugs for high cholesterol, osteoporosis prevention, stomach acid medications, antidepressants, over the counter pain medications, and more. Needless to say, I didn’t stay with Dr. Reddy for long.
The whole time the government was handing out Just Say No to Drugs pencils to school kids they were doing nothing at all about contaminated generics. We consumers are paying a premium price in our health insurance costs and getting rock bottom drugs in return.
I insist on brand name drugs for now (and I have to pay out of pocket while my insurance premiums go up) but who knows how long the companies in the US will face stringent regulations. Regulations seem to be falling lately. We even get drug components from overseas so potential problems already exist.
If, in the near future, you see or read about going to war with drug cartels, just remember: No one is doing a darn thing about the dangers in the drugs you take and that threat has been going on since 1984.
I went to see the redwoods and if you haven’t been there, you must go. Breath in their magnificence —the air around them is so fresh. In the redwoods, my harvest weary sinuses cleared and my jumbled mind unraveled. These trees don’t live near a major city—the coast of California with the coastal redwoods is punctuated with small towns and harbors. A feeling of peace and majesty descends on you there along with the fog. The trees have an intimate relationship with the fog. It provides up to 30% of their water.
Big Tree is a favorite stop and one of the trees that helped promote awareness of the need to save the redwoods from logging. By the time people began working to protect the coastal redwoods 100 years ago, 95% of them had been cut down.
There are three varieties of redwoods. The coastal redwoods are the tall ones, the giant sequoia have fatter trunks, and the dawn redwood, found in China, is a smaller version of these glorious trees. Various ranger stations and tourist traps sell seeds and baby trees. I wasn’t confident I could bring a coastal redwood back to Iowa and keep it happy, so I opted for a dawn redwood seed.
Humbolt Redwoods State Park features the Avenue of the Giants Auto Tour just off of Highway 101 and contains trees up to 2000 years old that have never been logged. These trees have stood up to fires, insects, and floods. We traversed the Northern most part of it and took time to visit some of the picturesque small towns along Highway 101as well.
One tourist trap, Trees of Mystery, has a notable collection of native pottery and information about the tribes that once inhabited the redwoods and this continent.
These huge trees grow burls when injured and stressed. You can see how red the wood is when looking at this burl. The tree litter is known as duff or sorrel.
As shown below, the roots of the coastal redwoods are fairly shallow. Over the centuries, the trees sustain some damage and still they persist.
Take a look at some of the cross sections and see the passage of time.
Thanks to the collective will of the people of California and elsewhere, these trees persist and reproduce. But it takes constant vigilance, and appreciation of them.
We have relatives from Portland who came with us and guided us on the trip. We drove along Oregon’s beautiful coast, staying in the small town of Bandon. Sadly, we had to walk out of a diner there because Fox News was on tv but we found a great seafood place and had a lovely seaside view.
We stopped at a light house/Coast Guard facility, had more seafood at Newport (home of Rogue Brewery) and even though it was early in the season, we saw some whales at a distance.
We flew in and out of Portland. Portland has a beautiful airport (see photo below) and is not a war zone. (Although possibly someone is trying to make it so. On the return trip, the air national guard was flying obnoxiously.) It’s horrible to have whole cities, and even states, lied about and subjected to unwanted occupation. Fortunately, people in this country know how to work together to save the trees and even democracy.
At the beginning of the semester, I asked students what aspect of writing they thought they needed to work on. Many said VOCABULARY, which was somewhat of a surprise. Or maybe not. We read writing tips from well-known authors and to quote Madeline L’Engle : “As our vocabulary expands, so does our power to think.”
Vague language conceals. Rich language illuminates. In order to be able to communicate, you need a decent vocabulary. Vague language could convey being unintelligent and not able to grasp nuance. It might be a sign of not knowing as when I used “pretty many” to describe a number and my thesis adviser had a fit. It could be a sign of aphasia, a loss of language due to a brain injury.
You can see vague language when Supreme Court justices pulled a fast one when asked about Roe vs Wade. Before confirmation they said everything from “It is an important precedent that’s been reaffirmed many times” to saying that taking a position “would undermine my ability to be impartial.”
Here’s where recent news fits in. In my brief viewing of Turning Point USA, the group used vague language. It is more of a slogan spitter than an honest debater. Here is another person’s encounter with them. From what I gathered, TP is more about zingers and bumper stickers than common ground. That’s why it is vague.
I was once acquainted with someone who worked for a “think tank” and learned that these debates can be ways to test slogans. They are not always for true debate. “Debaters” search for slogans that require some nuance to refute. Those slogans are the best slogans to use when winning is the objective. To quote Goerge Lakoff “an opponent may be disingenuous if his real goal isn’t what he says his goal is.” This disingenuousness can be infectious. It can teach students bad discussion skills and narcissistic arguing that can disrupt a classroom or even education itself.
Not all speech is quality speech. Some is vague. Some is manipulative. And some is just plain mean. If the purpose of an institution is to educate, then organizations promoting vague speech—which limits our ability to think– and narcissistic antagonism should not be allowed near learners.
Vague is the difference between seeing a show and seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show. I recall working at Pella’s Holland Theater when that movie was shown. Pella citizens, one identifying as a minister, came and told us young kids works there that they were sinners going to hell. That wouldn’t happen with any show. Or in any town.
Honing language takes practice and education. After my adviser threw up his hands at the vague statement I made, I worked harder to be prepared with accurate and precise information.
Kudos to my students for claiming an education in a world trying to un-educate them. Education is a gift. Illumination is worth more than vagueness. To think for yourself, you first have to think.
Catherine Haustein 
