I am SUCH a procrastinator. This is not a surprise to anyone who knows me well. I get a big rush from plowing all my energy into things at the last minute. It’s intoxicating. I think I’m probably an amateur adrenalin junkie. You won’t find me on thrill rides at amusement parks, or jumping out …Read More

Being a kid who was attracted to the unusual, the disturbing, the alien, and otherness, I always wanted to visit a sideshow, but I was discouraged from it by my folks and, later, friends. Mostly on the grounds that it was a rip-off. But, finally, at my advanced age of *ahem*, I decided that I …Read More

The dogs and I have been walking in the hour before dusk each day. I used to call the stretch of land between the woods where we walk the deer pasture, or the upper pasture. We do have a lower pasture–and it is pasture enough. Flat, big enough for a horse or two. It was …Read More

I’m uncomfortable with the question, “Why do you write?” It’s one of those seemingly innocuous questions that often comes up in interviews between questions about my favorite music to write to, and do I write in longhand or on a computer. I’ve given various answers at different times because I’ve never thought that there was …Read More

This morning I took the dogs for a walk in the deer pasture overlooking our house. We don’t cultivate the acreage specifically for the deer who feed in it. They just show up daily for the grass and other tender bits. We keep a path mowed through it throughout the year, but its body is …Read More

I’ve been in an introspective frame of mind of late. Sometime around 2:30 this morning I finally completed the first draft of my latest novel, so I guess introspection has actually been required. The earliest file date I can find for this story is late November, 2008–which means I’ve been at work on it for …Read More

I get a real kick out of teaching writing workshops. Not just because I get to meet interesting new people, but because I get to spend the weeks leading up to it trying to figure out (again and again) how to teach people to write. Sometimes I forget how to write. It’s kind of like …Read More

(Image by Billie Cromwell/PGC Game Commission) When I was in high school, I was friends with a girl who worked for the furrier in the mall. Thursday afternoons and Saturdays the owner would buzz her through the front doors and she would become a part of another, more grown-up world for a few hours. The …Read More