You have a great pleasure waiting for you in this collection of essays, stories and reminiscences. The author has wide-ranging interests from such things as social issues and religion to the solar system and the psychology of the dreaming mind. His ideas will surprise and delight you and you will be intrigued by the unexpected slant he gives to old controversies as he searches for new answers. Humor is never far away. If he does fall into preaching in his discussions of economics and land use it is because he believes that a lack of attention to the forces at work are leading us toward disaster. In another mood which he labels Irish sentiment he tugs at our heart strings with his account of a simple thing like the death of a pet guinea pig. The selections are seldom longer than a few pages but the impact of each is to leave you with a satisfied feeling and the realization that you have something new to think about.

Things consists of humor/humanist essays taken from experiences gathered and written while living my fun and exciting, NEVER boring (yeah, right) controversial, deviant (I love that), Gay, and Lesbian lifestyle. Locally, they have been very well received. I can prove this by quoting from the many and numerous (two - possibly three) fan letters that I have received over the 5 years that I have been writing these (200+) columns. Here, allow me -

"My body's off to Kelly Morris! Forget the hat! Her article, "The Boob Seen Around the World" was pure laughter. I cried as I read it was so funny. I need more medicine like this. I will read her from now on."

I am not making this stuff up.

"You don't have to be gay to read Kelly Morris. I am straight and absolutely love the way she tells it like it is."

Fun, huh? Do you get fan mail like that? I have framed both of them. I can show you if you wish to come over some time for tea.

In my column, I have reflected on sooooo many diversified "Things." From tripping over a cobblestone and falling into a crowd at Gay pride (only to be attacked by onlookers who thought I was attacking them) to cursing out my 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit at a Jaguar dealership - from commenting on the problems associated with modern technology ("Cell Phone Psychotic") to fantasizing about a Lesbian superhero named "Danger Dyke" ("Insania") - from being a woman (albeit a Lesbian) trying to pee in the worst, most disgusting men's bathroom on the planet ("Urine Trouble") to being on the Atkin's diet, jonesing for carbohydrates while on a four hour layover at George Bush Intercontinental airport ("Airport TERMINAL"), I have observed and commented, written and rewritten (and rewritten and rewritten ) my life. We won't even go into the chapter entitled "Strange Things" which was spawned from a very demented lobe of my brain ("Shut up! Don't tell them THAT." "Hey, don't tell me what to do...") It's fun, it's true (well, for the most part) and I don't think I have insulted anyone in the process... Someone from Alabama somewhere may get offended, I don't know. Hard to tell really.

Anyway, I have no ulterior motives behind writing this book. I can proudly and honestly say that my sole intention is the pursuit of wealth and fame. I want to vacation in Tahiti - well, a vacation anywhere would be nice. I hope you enjoy this book. Love Kelly (her alter ego.)

Essays tell us what to think about, and how to live. These sensory, lyrical narratives of decision-making show women turning suffering into understanding, grief into poetry and tragedy into renewal. The theme of This Crisis, These Blessings is: Women are who we are- unfinished, ill, well, biologically and culturally diverse, erotic, gorgeous, good, ever changing. We should fly like angels.

This book is helpful in medicine and counselling. Medicine and therapy improve if practitioners read about suffering and use literature in their practices.

Cathy Stonehouse, author of The Words I Know, and the essay "In the Presence of Grace" (Dropped Threads Three) says, "Out of the crisis that is contemporary womanhood, Deirdre Maultsaid's voice sings out sure and clear. Whether drawn from her life as teacher, mother, sexual assault survivor or traveler, Maultsaid's fragments and reflections illuminate through challenging, refuse to excuse themselves, choose instead to bless their reader with wounds. Ready to revolt? Stubborn, lush, combative and irreducible, Maultsaid's lyric rants invite us in to a world where too much is known, and like water, we rise."

Mark Anthony Jarman, author of Salvage King, Ya!, and 19 Knives says, "These essays are disturbing and cumulative and unexpected..."

A collection of essays on heterogeneous topics, amounting to a 'condensate' of a lifetime of thoughts and considerations of the matters discussed. There are a number of original suggestions aimed at the improvement of people's lives.

Thomas Jefferson, A Free Mind is a collection of essays about the talented third president. Thomas Jeffersons impact on the United States and world was large when he was alive over 200 years ago, but his impact today is even larger. As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Jeffersons contribution to America becomes more evident. As America deals with terrorists in the 21st century we are reminded that Thomas Jefferson was the first president to confront with military force the Barbary pirate terrorists in the early 1800s.

The twenty two essays cover not only the Corps of Discovery and the Barbary pirates, but Jeffersons impacts on architecture, law, political thinking, wine and the French revolution just to name a few. Thomas Jefferson was interested in almost everything and this book of essays traverses many of his life long pursuits.

We are enriched today because of Jeffersons stubborn persistence in the belief of public education. Our university grounds are all modeled after his stunningly beautiful "campus" concept for his University of Virginia. Many of the rights we take for granted today are rooted in Thomas Jeffersons early arguments as a new lawyer for "natural rights". The more we know of Jefferson, the more the find his fingerprints on modern day culture, style and life.