Lake Cayuga, Ithaca, New York It’s been said that if you’re related to a writer, you’ll see yourself on her pages sooner or later. The idea of being not only depicted, but laid bare for strangers to consume in a spirit of pity, mirth, or...
In my new novel, What Is Found, What Is Lost, one of the main protagonists (there are four) reflects that “time was a loop, from now to then and back again.” Freddie, who changed her name at age twenty-one, and moved Heaven and earth to...
Buy here (Read Chapter 2 here, Chapter 3 here) Chapter One 2012 In a quiet Sioux Falls neighborhood, a widow walked her Boston terrier along a shady street. The dog moved slowly and without much purpose, as if he, too, were grieving. The woman, Freddie, considered the loss of...
Seattle is a city of neighborhoods, and each seems to have a farmers market. While we don't live in Ballard (we're on Queen Anne), we do a lot there - work out at the gym, dine, shop, marvel at how much that particular quarter has...
Today I'm chatting with Cliff Garstang, author of In An Uncharted Country (Press 53, 2010) and What The Zhang Boys Know (Press 53, 2012). As you'll read, Cliff is both very interesting and highly accomplished. He and I have crossed paths a few times in the last...
Available this October from Oceanview Publishing Pre-order here: Lamentation, Joe Clifford’s riveting new novel, is a page-turner in the classic sense. You can’t put it down. You need to know what comes next. At the heart of this particular bundle of darkness is an ordinary guy, Jay Porter,...
If You Don’t Profess a Mainstream Religion, Hobby Lobby Just Made You a Second-Class Citizen The most important thing about the Hobby Lobby ruling wasn’t that it allowed the owners of a closely held corporations to opt out of including contraceptives in the health benefits available...
Before she was my landlady, Velma Wiley was my co-worker. We were housekeepers in a retirement home. I was nineteen. Velma was in her sixties. Although there were six of us on staff, I was usually paired with her, because the steady stream of chatter...
Today I chat with writer, poet, and musician Lawrence Parlier. Parlier's debut novel, Sierra Court Blues, was published in 2013 by Hawkins Publishing Group. What fuels your writing? And what, if anything, slows it down? I think curiosity is what drives me. I am infinitely curious about...
Poor, poor Nora Etheridge, that woman upstairs. You know the one, pleasant, genteel, a good neighbor, always helpful, never demanding, forever single and trapped in a career – teaching art to third graders – that is far below her true talents. Does she complain? Never! ...
