Category Archives: Memoir

Book Review: Jack London: An American Life by Earle Labor

If I had to name the three writers most influential on my own career as a writer, they would be Jack London, Harlan Ellison, and Henry Miller.  I would snap up a biography of Harlan Ellison in a moment, but … Continue reading

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Self-Evaluation

I have reached a sort of limbo in my writing career.  It has happened before; in fact, it used to happen every school term in Greece, especially around exam time. No matter what resolve I might muster up, no matter … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer; Part Two: The Frog in the Pot

Coming to the end of a great book is an exhilarating experience tempered only by the fact that the ride is over.  This book, though it is a work of nonfiction, concludes like a novel, with a buildup in a … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer; Part One: My New Year’s Resolutions

You might be wondering what this book and my new year’s resolutions have in common.  Never fear, all will be made clear in due time.  I am a little more than halfway through the book, and it is one of … Continue reading

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The Cold

The main life event I am experiencing right now is the excruciating cold here in Yakima, Washington.  As I write this at the desk in my bedroom, the window is frozen shut and icicles hang along the inside of the … Continue reading

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Sunflower: A Novel by John Walters – Now Available!

“Sunflower”, my third novel, is now available on Amazon in a print edition here, and in an electronic edition here. This is what the back cover copy says: “In early 1970 a new era, the Age of Aquarius, is dawning. … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri; Part One: Background

I’m only about halfway through this latest novel by Jhumpa Lahiri now, but reading it stirs up so many memories I can’t help but write about it.  Lahiri is one of the few writers now working for whose books I … Continue reading

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Walters Walk, or, What It’s Like to Self-Publish

Long ago, even before we had the beach house which is also long gone, our family spent our summer vacations for a few years at Lake Crescent on the Olympic Peninsula.  It’s a beautiful place surrounded by evergreen forest at … Continue reading

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A Tale of Three Jackets

In order to help you understand this completely I need to tell you an anecdote about my father.  He had a great sense of humor back in the days when most of us lived together under one roof, before we … Continue reading

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Where You’re Meant to Be

No sooner had I begun to get used to Yakima than I was jerked away. But already I am getting ahead of my story. It begins…  No, there is no beginning; it only continues… We take up our story in … Continue reading

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