This Jewish Life med coverWELCOME to my online home, where I look forward to sharing stories with you.

If you’re just discovering my stories, let me introduce myself: I’m Debra Darvick and you can discover a lot more about my work by clicking on the cover, at right, of my newly released This Jewish Life. That click will take you to my new author interview with ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm.

If you’re among my many longtime readers, I hope you will feel at home here, as well. Five years ago, nearly to the day, my wonderful and talented son created a beautiful website that regular readers have enjoyed through 192 posts. Nearly 40,000 visitors have stopped by and many of you kindly left comments.

The scope of my writing is as wide as life itself. Over the years, some writers narrow their focus to a single core subject, whether it’s food, vintage books, shoes or skateboarding Moms. Eclectic as I am, I’ve never been able to narrow my focus. This is a double-edged sword. It makes it harder to fit me into a marketing profile, but leaves me free to express myself and weigh in on whatever I choose. Most importantly, it allows me to welcome readers with broad interests—perhaps like you.

My web redesign and relaunch now offers categories called Maps, Musings, Seasons and Asanas—my way of organizing my stories for you. Maps is for columns relating to travel and adventures both near and far. Musings houses posts about anything and everything from kids to current events to relationships and beyond. Seasons is where I dig in for reflections about gardening and nature. Asana, in yoga parlance, is a specific posture. Shivasana is the resting posture that comes at the end of yoga class. Bakasana is crow; adho mukha savasana is downward dog, and so on. Thus this fourth category, Asanas, is the place to join me on the mat as I assimilate whatever inspiration I have gleaned from my ongoing yoga practice.

And there’s more to this redesign. Over on the right you’ll see More Debra. Stop by for book reviews and posts on the writing life as well as links to sermons I’ve delivered over the past decade. You’ll also see a link to the front page of ReadTheSpirit Magazine. ReadTheSpirit is the brainchild of journalist David Crumm and software developer John Hile. The online magazine brings together spiritual seekers from all traditions, walks of life and experiences. ReadTheSpirit is creating real-world community, energy and understanding between folks who might not otherwise have crossed paths. And last but not least, stop by this section as we introduce His Lens/My Pen, a collaboration between my husband and me (guess who’s the lens and who’s the pen). Finally, I’ll have an ongoing forum to share my meditations on his wonderful photos and in the near future, you’ll be able to enjoy them as greeting cards and posters.

So, a heartfelt thanks to my son for getting me started, to each and every reader who has chosen to spend a bit of reading time with me, leaving a comment or not, and the wonderful team at ReadTheSpirit Books as they officially debut This Jewish Life, this week.