we are all held together by a crazy string

Posted July 16, 2026

Filed under Writing

This I know for sure… Writing is certainly re-writing. Since the start of this year I have been working through rewrites of my novel. I can’t pretend that editing is an easy straight line, but I am quite grateful that a team of editors at WeBook read and reread my words with such care, and thanks to their efforts, Crazy String is a far better novel than it was before. But here’s the most exciting news: last week I signed off on the completed manuscript! So, we are indeed in the final stretch towards publishing. Before the end of July I will have an official pre-order date for the paper book (the eBook is already available to pre-order on Amazon). A big part of me has been on hold during this rewriting stage, so I am more than ready to fill my calendar with celebrations and launch dates and opportunities to meet with readers, and share this story with you.

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Literary Citizenship

Posted January 15, 2026

Filed under Writing

Last Saturday I attended the Inaugural Laguna Beach Literary Festival, and I’m so glad I did, because the whole experience strengthened my resolve to be a better Literary Citizen. Simply put, that’s a person who reads. Like me. Like you, as you are reading this. Of course I also happen to be a person who writes, but that’s a side note to my conviction to read widely, to buy books, to pop into my local bookstore and ask for their favorites, basically to consider the rich nuances of humanity through novels and non-fiction alike. Reading to view our present dilemmas against the atrocities of the past. To acknowledge flaws in beliefs that were once so solid. Reading to better understand those who I can’t and reading to find solidarity. Reading generates questions like why is it that authoritarian regimes burn books? Why is educational funding cut before anything else? Why is everyone ingesting their information and imagination via visuals like TikTok and YouTube? Whose interest is being served by this shift away from print? Why is maintaining literary citizenship a threat to governments who don’t respect your ideas, your past, your rights, your very existence? By reading you know exactly why.

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What are you reading?

Posted August 28, 2025

Filed under Life

What are you reading? seems to be a go-to question among friends and colleagues and family, especially in the summer months when we allow for such rewarding but hard to find time for endeavors. During July and August school children sign up for reading programs, beach novels get traded sand and all between besties, and adults of all degrees become literary critics with ease pronouncing and denouncing across their social media platforms. I too enjoyed a few novels in between the relentless weekly New Yorker. Whatever you are feeling today, joy over Taylor & Travis, excitement about Alcaraz’s buzz and level of excellence, or despair over the latest school shooting, marking over 430 such massacres of children since Columbine, fright over the walk-out of science and medical experts from the C.D.C., terror over Putin’s control of the current US President, anger towards the cowardly GOP dismantling voting rights, citizen rights, or anything that would require a conversation, horror over the wars still raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, in any case you just might find a way out of going crazy by reading a novel. Yes, fiction to start. But history and memoir and art and poetry and on and on through the whole myriad of genres will all guide you through the darkest of days and longest of nights.

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