Martha K. Baker

Martha K. Baker is the second of four daughters born to a couple who dropped out of Parenting 101 before the midterm. She is an English-Major-for-Life who holds a master’s degree. She has taught at the college level: freshman comp., advanced rhetoric, Southern lit, women’s lit, business writing, and film. She toiled as a reporter for the St. Louis Business Journal (beats: the arts and construction) before becoming a freelance writer. She has been a film and book critic for more than forty years.

Ten Things I Can’t Do Without

1. My 200+ day lilies
2. Novels (family, not historical) by Elizabeth (not Eileen) Goudge
3. A tin ashtray with a Scottie in the center, advertising for Dr. C. M. Coe, Proctologist (Office Hours: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sundays 10 to 12 noon), part of Grandmother Baker’s “estate”
4. The picture of me at 72, swinging my feet like a giddy little girl, atop Spiral Mound in the Garden of Cosmic Speculation near Dumfries, Scotland
5. Chocolate
6. Pepsi (Diet, no caffeine)
7. My passport while I’m still in my go-go years (not looking forward to the slo-go or no-go years)
8. L. Cohen singing “Sisters of Mercy”
9. Elvis singing “Suspicious Minds”
10. Grandmother Baker’s dumpling recipe