Books and Authors
A fondless farewell, una búsqueda sin fin, and a reminder of the round-and-round of life
A few January notes. Bye bye, Trump I woke up at 5:00 am on January 21 without an alarm and an hour and a half before my usual time to spill out of bed after another night of ragged sleep. I realized I was up in time to see Trump’s departure from the White House.…
Read MoreReading books during a pandemic
There’s a terrible inequity in asking people to please read my new book Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories when I’ve been unable to read more than a few books since the pandemic disrupted our lives and unsettled our psyches. While many others found solace and refuge in books, my brain failed to connect with words…
Read MoreArrivals
September was all about arrivals – three of them, all occurring within a ten-day span during a pandemic, with fires raging in the West, in a country swirling ever deeper into a shithole of its own making thanks to a morally bankrupt administration and, as been recently revealed though long suspected, a literally bankrupt unbillionaire…
Read MoreGrooving into the vast book universe with a book trailer
If you’re a small press author who has virtually no name recognition, how do you get attention for your new book (your third) because shouting Look, I have a book! Again! into the void that is Twitter isn’t the answer. So why do I think shouting Look, I have a book trailer! will be any…
Read MoreWhat Angie Rubio Owes to My Junior High English Teacher
In less than two months, Angie Rubio will enter the world as the shero of her own relatively ordinary, yet microaggression-ridden life when Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories is released from Jaded Ibis Press on September 21. You can pre-order your copy from the terrific folks at Elliott Bay Books. Writer Kathleen Alcalá sums up…
Read MoreSmall presses, important voices
Without the existence of small presses, it’s pretty certain I would not have two published books and another forthcoming to my name. Small presses, some of which release only a few books each year, are run with limited resources by small, dedicated staffs. Many were established to publish books that have been overlooked (or underlooked?…
Read MoreThe hope of Angie Rubio in this election year
For the second time, the publication of a book of mine coincides with a presidential election year. Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories will be published this fall, five weeks ahead of election day. While fall is a busy time for new books to arrive on the scene, my concern is not that Living Color will…
Read MoreIt’s “Please-Look-at-Me” Time Again
My third book of fiction Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories comes out this fall from Jaded Ibis Press and the please-look-at-me part of being a writer has begun. It started with my publisher asking for blurbs on my behalf. It’s a big thing to ask, given that it’s a request for someone’s time. It’s also…
Read MoreWhere resolution meets writing even when my resolution isn’t about writing
I have one firmly defined and achievable resolution, and I have one that is maybe not a resolution after all, but some vague hope. But I’m making a connection between that resolution and that hope, because I’m making a connection between that resolution and everything in my life. My resolution: To be able to have…
Read MoreSome Things I Read and Did in 2019 – A Mash-up
This past year I read good books and experienced good things. Here are a few of each of them matched up in a semi-random, teeny bit calculated way, introduced by a few lines from the featured book. From “1989” in How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, a deeply perceptive and intelligent collection of essays by…
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