Category Archives: Travel

What’s Gone Down and What’s Coming Up

I am starting to realize the uniqueness of every writer’s, indeed every person’s, walk in life.  No two literary careers are the same, thank God.  Otherwise you might as well simply be programmed virtually at birth and remain alive artificially … Continue reading

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Book Review: On Moving: A Writer’s Meditation on New Houses, Old Haunts, and Finding Home Again by Louise DeSalvo

My son and I just moved again, from Yakima to Seattle, Washington.  We took a walk to the local branch of the Seattle Public Library to check it out and apply for library cards.  Waiting for the librarians to do … Continue reading

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The Rules for Alternative Realities

I have been giving a lot of thought lately to mistakes I might have made in the past.  Let’s not say mistakes; let’s rather say that if I had to make certain choices over again that I made long decades … Continue reading

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Afterword to the Short Story “Portals”

I have begun to write and assemble story afterwords (ubiquitous additions to my volumes of short stories) for my next short story collection. These notes are on “Portals”, a story that has already been published electronically and is available at … Continue reading

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My Favorite Books on Writing

I don’t think you can learn writing from a book.  If it can be taught, it is more through osmosis, through absorbing everything around you, including books, personal experience, and insight from other writers.  I hesitate to add writing classes, … 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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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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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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It’s Been a Long, Strange Trip

For this reflective look back upon my life I find myself in sun-baked Brooklyn, New York.  I didn’t plan to be in New York at this time.  I had just moved from San Diego, California to Yakima, Washington when I … Continue reading

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