2018-11-04 06:00
The celebrants are a young, attractive couple. They stand at the center spot of the blackjack table as if they stopped momentarily. He’s tall, wearing a tux, and has impeccable hair. S… Read More
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Fiction, memoir, travel & essays
2018-10-07 23:14
On the day of my visit, winds gusted to 50 mph as thick furrows of clouds menaced on the horizon. It was fitting, I thought, given the demeanor of the island’s most notorious resident… Read More
2017-10-18 00:19
I'm honored to be included in The Pilgrimage Chronicles, a collection of 30 essays about pilgrimages worldwide with dramatic cover art by Lorie Karnath. Continue Reading →
The post The… Read More
2017-10-18 00:19
I'm honored to be included in The Pilgrimage Chronicles, a collection of 30 essays about pilgrimages worldwide with dramatic cover art by Lorie Karnath. Continue Reading →
The post The… Read More
2017-10-12 19:35
Cultural traditions are not always as they seem and their origins are often more complicated than we imagine. So it is with the Acadians and Scots of Nova Scotia, whose unlikely convergence… Read More
2017-01-04 19:31
He’d been silent, the other man at the bar, gazing into his glass of whiskey before growing animated at the mention of Mark Twain. “I met Twain one time, you know, out near Jacka… Read More
2016-11-07 15:30
He’d been silent, the other man at the bar, gazing into his glass of whiskey before growing animated at the mention of Mark Twain. “I met Twain one time, you know, out near Jacka… Read More
2016-08-18 23:53
"A chill rippled across my skin as I realized that we were standing in that very room and the bed before me was the subject of the poem — the death-bed in 'The Bed by the Window.' Robi… Read More
2016-06-17 20:00
The random discovery of an 1866 survey map allows a historical novelist to better reconstruct the frontier town of Greenwood (Elk, CA) along the Mendocino Coast. Continue Reading →
The… Read More
2016-04-29 13:52
When lumber mills first began sprouting up along the 19th century Mendocino coast, Native Americans were still a constant presence. Many indigenous place names were adopted by settlers and r… Read More
2016-03-24 00:46
At the peak of Lorenzo White's success his holdings stretched from Oakland to Fort Bragg. He owned stores, ranches, sawmills, hotels, ferries, saloons, restaurants, real estate, a fleet of s… Read More
2016-01-31 07:00
In the mid-nineteenth century, the sawmills and lumber towns of Mendocino County were isolated from the more settled places that lined San Francisco Bay. The lack of roads, the ungainly Nort… Read More
2015-12-17 19:30
One of the biggest challenges in writing historical fiction is managing the facts. Sometimes those facts are inconveniently arranged. Other times, there is a paucity of information. The form… Read More
2015-10-29 20:25
An author asks himself, "What if a transplanted Easterner taught loggers in 1850s California how to play baseball? Would that be an anachronism?" As it turns out, no. Thanks to Alexander Car… Read More
2015-09-02 09:00
The idea for a historical novel set in 19th century Mendocino County first came to me in the small town of Albion, California. I was spending a weekend in an old converted water tower and re… Read More
2015-08-01 15:02
August 1 is a banner day for great American sea novels as we celebrate the birthdays of Richard Henry Dana, Jr. and Herman Melville. Both men provided important source information for the na… Read More
2015-05-14 01:09
Why would loggers carry guns? They worked in small crews alone in the forested mountains of Mendocino County. At the time, the area was crawling with black bear, grizzly bear, wolves, and mo… Read More
2015-04-16 19:44
Though Whitman may never have "[Faced] west, from California's shores," as he trumpeted in a second California poem, he successfully persuades us in his opening stanzas of the authenticity o… Read More
2015-04-07 00:03
After listening carefully to her recordings over many years, I've come to appreciate the amount of effort Billie Holiday invested in each song and what a skillfully crafted stylist she was… Read More
2015-03-22 19:33
Aleta George spent ten years pouring over newspaper and journal clippings, diaries, literary works, and even Coolbrith’s scrapbook to unearth the quotes, observations and insights that… Read More
2015-03-07 19:40
"Breathe In," a story of discovery in the small Tuscan town of Montisi, wins the 2015 Solas Silver Award for Travel and shopping. Continue Reading →
The post 2015 Solas Awards: “B… Read More
2015-02-26 15:26
Even by the mid-1850s, trouble was brewing for people of color in California. There were frequent skirmishes between settlers and the local Pomo communities. Chivalry Democrats, who were pro… Read More
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