I found something amusing on Amazon today. There’s a concordance for my story collection, The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress. The concordance lists the 100 most frequently used words in the book. They tend toward the masculine–ivan, jake, jimmy, john, sven. One thing is clear from this list: characters in the book, for better or…Continue reading concordance

It’s my birthday. 35. Yikezoid. Scorpio to the core. Yes, go ahead and hate me–scorpio is the most reviled of all the astrological signs. I can’t imagine why. Please send me tales of a)your weirdest birthday, b)worst birthday present, or c)your dream birthday celebration. Wait, wait…even better! Have you ever been on the receiving end…Continue reading calling all scorpios

I came out of my favorite little sandwich shop in Burlingame this afternoon to see a meter man circling my car, punchpad in hand. The machine was already ticking, spewing forth the ticket that would set me back four times the cost of my sandwich, which I wasn’t convinced I wanted to eat anyway. “Oh!”…Continue reading grace

Yesterday, I received a note from Ericka Lutz at Literary Mama, suggesting a small edit on a story of mine they’re running in October. It was a very good edit, so precise and insightful, and, in a way, so obvious, that I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it myself. I told Ericka to go…Continue reading people who need editor people