A few days ago, I left my hairdresser’s shop feeling happy. When a woman’s hair looks good, she feels good, too. Then I reached my car and discovered my keys were missing. Suddenly I felt as if I’d swallowed a live gerbil. Of course, my keys had to be near. I’d driven to the s

In an earlier blog I complained my doctor thought I was too old for anymore fecal tests.  I was stunned.  But on the day I returned from my mammogram, I received a second email from her.  I am also too old for mammograms, as well. No more fecal tests or mammograms?  Why mourn? I n

“You made it so easy.”  The woman on the other end of the phone laughed.  She was referring to an email I’d sent to friends about Barnes And Noble’s holiday 20% discount  on my books. I sent the message more for vanity than for sales.   I was tickled to see my novel, Hear

I had a long and convoluted conversation with my stock broker this morning.  Times are volatile for the market and for the world, and so we bent our heads together to examine ways to preserve capital.  In the end, we concluded no place was safe.  Putting money in a bank, bonds or i

Many times I’ve noted a large gap exists between what our brain tells us about the world and truth. My novel Trompe l’Oeil is a study of that gap – the difference between appearance and reality. Even so, we infinitely small creatures of a small planet among billions of galaxies

The time has come to begin the third rewrite of my memoir. The manuscript has laid fallow for a month, so I will look at it with fresh eyes, correcting imperfections and doing my best to serve my readers. When it reaches print, it will be the best effort I can make at this stage of my

In the writers’ pecking order, the author with a publisher stands taller than the one who is self-published.  Having a publisher implies someone other than the writer believes in the work enough to commit hard cash to producing it. Nonetheless, after working with 4 publishers, I’

This is embarrassing.  I went to a book sale the other day and sold all my novels, including my personal copy of Gothic Spring.  I sold it  by mistake.  The book is valuable to me because  I use it when I do readings. The pages are  dog-eared and marked with comments I wish to m

My friend and colleague, Susan Stoner, Sage Adair mystery series writer, sent me an article the other day with an “I told you so,” message.  Stoner self publishes her work and uses a distributor to make her series available in bookstore.  For some time, she’s encouraged me to

Haruki Murakami’s new book, Colorless Tsukuru and His Years of Pilgrimage, is receiving critical acclaim, most recently from Rivka Galchen.  (“The Monkey did it,” By Rivka Galchen, Harper’s Magazine, October 2014, pgs. 86-89.)  I haven’t read Murakami’s newest work yet,