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Many of you may have already seen my FaceBook post a few days ago. For those who may have missed it, I’ve decided to share by way of a special news bulletin. This past weekend (April 17-18-19), 2026, I attended the 2025 Chanticleer Book Awards in Bellingham, WA. My latest novel, ‘Tsarina’s Jewels’, was in the running for a Hemingway Award for 20th Century Wartime Fiction and a Goethe Award for Post-1750s Historical Fiction. My book was already a finalist in each category. T

I see that declaration everywhere, and I’ve met with other poets gathered to celebrate that acknowledgement. But why? I don’t recall a month ever being set aside to celebrate fiction or non-fiction work; or romance, historical, fantasy, articles, essays, documentaries and so on. Why poetry? What makes it different? © 2026 Jerena Tobiasen I write historical fiction. I’ve spent hours, days, weeks, even months researching historical facts to ensure that my creations are accura

Floaters. Have you experienced them? Small, distracting spots caused by debris in the vitreous humor of the eye. They seem to float with whimsy across the field of vision. Myodesopsia is the medical term. Recently, a cloudy film began to obscure my vision, a side-effect of cataract surgery. Laser surgery removed the film and cleared my vision. Sigh of relief. However, within twenty-four hours, odd-shaped floaty things began cruising across, around, up and down, my field of vi

As I wrote in my January newsletter, my husband and I cruised Asian seas during October and early November. We returned home for almost three weeks, then headed south to cruise through Central America. That cruise took us from Cozumel, Mexico to Guayaquil, Ecuador via the Panama Canal with additional stops at Costa Maya, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica. While I have a soft spot in my heart for all stops, I think Cozumel may have been the most fun. Our tour for the

We began in Yokahama, Japan, with the threat of a typhoon lingering offshore. Great! I expected to be overtaken by motion sickness as soon as we left shore. As it turned out, I wasn’t, and for someone who is prone to motion sickness, I wasn’t affected at all. Not once! From Yokahama, we sailed to ports providing land-tour access to Nagoya, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Kagoshima. We visited a variety of palaces, museums, Shinto and Buddhist temples, and more. We walked through a bambo

The place I call home has four seasons, and October falls in the middle of autumn. Spring brings soft fragrances, pastel colours and gentle breezes. Summer reinforces the maturation of those fragrances and colours and adds spectacular storms of thunder and lightning. Autumn is different. It’s the precursor to heavy winter rain, snowstorms, and ice. It arrives with attitude: brilliant colours of gold, burnt orange, crimson and blood red, a chilled wind that crushes the gentlen