There’s Gnome Place Like Home

Potted plants with garden gnomes

Much of my fiction is set in a place that resembles my hometown of National City, California and some of my characters live in a house that resembles the National City house I grew up in. I’ll argue that these similarities are due not to writerly laziness or lack of imagination, but to an emotional…

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Rejection and Acceptance

A series of the word "Declined"

Rejection is part of a writer’s life. We all know this. Rejections will outnumber acceptances. It’s a statistical certainty. So we learn to respond to rejection with acceptance—at least intellectually. But our very human emotions insist otherwise. When I receive a rejection for my work, the first thing I feel is disappointment, and then a…

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Shrinking our spaces, but not our selves

Window with view of neighborhood and cat perched on couch

I’ve written about the house we used to live in both in fiction and for a live performance (2018 Ampersand Live, minute 18:26). It was our first house, which was also our last house, the fixer-upper that never quite got fixed up enough and in the last years that we occupied it, lost many of…

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A little boy walks toward the future …

toddler walking

I think about the future a lot lately, like every day, almost endlessly. For one thing, I turn 68 in a few months and the future is not as long or as far away as it once was. For another thing, I have a grandson now, and I wonder what the future means for him.…

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December ends 2020 at last already

It’s time for some brief reflections on this pandemic year that nevertheless had its moments of grace and illumination for me as I hope it did for you. It goes without saying that it leaves lots of room for improvement.   The dispirit of Christmas On my morning walk, I often pass a house that…

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The 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…

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The Funk Brothers Lifted Me From My Funk

Twitter is my compulsion during these coronavirus days. I’m a habitual scroller, madly clicking support on all posts about the appalling ineptitude and negligence of Trump, his shameful lies to cover his inaction and shameless self-congratulation for imaginary accomplishments. I retweet in support of authors whose celebrations and tours for their new books have been cancelled.…

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