
Blog

A BOOK AND ITS COVER
What about the others—people unknown to the author—who help create the actual artifact?
Bread Winner
The book is rich with insight, alight with compassion
THE LAND OF LUCKY STRIKE
The stories masked pain I never guessed at.
Story? Novella? Novel?
No one sets out to write a novella.
North and East: The Fortune Teller
Instead of wondering about our futures, let’s go ask!
“Veteran’s Day”
I almost never speak of my brother.
Fair Augusto, fair fair Augusto
In Venice the past is everywhere present.
Cookbook Mania—In Reverse
I once was an adventurous cook, eager to try out new recipes, learn new techniques.
A Crash Course in Revision
There’s something strangely satisfying about slashing through your own prose.
The Barn Owl
Graced Land is fiction, but this character, this was from life. My life.
From Trash to Antiques
History is nakedly cruel and random, messy, inefficient, and thus, it must be clothed with story.
Graceland to Graced Land
A place of Grace where you could be assured, comforted and uplifted, all at the same time.
Audubon
I have slept in Elvis’s bedroom. Not too many people can say, can they?
Myth and Music
Forty-five years after his death Elvis remains both American myth and American mirror.
“Now You Know What I Do for an Encore…”
Twelve solid hours of music, movies, jigsaw puzzles and Fools Gold Loaf.
The Story Behind the Story
Before writing Graced Land I had not given Elvis Presley a thought since the day he died
Caveat
For eighteen years the ideas for this short novel hovered over my imaginative life.
The Great Timetable
“A History of the World from the Time of Adam to the Close of the Apostles’ Time,”
Destiny’s Consolation Prize, or “Forget Domani”
“Hi,” I said, laughing out loud, “and I’m Virginia Woolf!”
THE WEED-STREWN LOT OF PLOT #5
Memory will not be restricted to the needs of memoir. Memory is not merely unruly, but anarchic.
Passports and Visas
The past became like the creatures in Where the Wild Things Are, baring its terrible fangs, breathing its terrible breath.