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There is no good reason why I should love Lunar New Years. It’s not a holiday I grew up celebrating. It always falls on a different date, taking me by surprise, sometimes still fatigued from the December holidays. It’s also a gargantuan effort, at least the way I do it: combining the decorating of Halloween, […]

Wherein we learn that, despite all the awesome coddling that comes with being at a super publishing house, they will not do EVERYTHING for you.  Lookie what I got! If I’d a known accordions weighed a ton,I woulda written them heavier. No, I’m not taking up a new hobby. I’ve rented it for a shoot […]

I can’t lay all this wretchedness of the past few weeks on 2015’s doorstep; the pain was brewing just at the end of the year, smuggled in as an odd ache amongst the assorted miseries of a flu before the holidays, and asserting itself just as 2014 was giving up the ghost. But it wasn’t […]

A few weeks ago, I received a rather large packet in the mail: My manuscript! But covered in strange markings, done in mauve pencil. This, my friends, was the copy edited copy of Still Life Las Vegas, ready for perusal. A bit daunting at first glance, this document was nonetheless exhilarating to look at. After […]

IT’S HERE. When I first opened the email attachment that had the possible cover of “Still Life Las Vegas” in it, I gasped and slammed my computer shut. It was nothing that I expected: there was so many images, so much color, and it was oddly… Perfect.  I’ve never met Young Lim, the designer at […]

“I like a look of Agony,  Because I know it’s true— Men do not sham Convulsion Nor simulate, a Throe— The Eyes glaze once—and that is Death— Impossible to feign The Beads upon the Forehead By homely Anguish Strung.“          —Emily Dickinson To say I was looking forward to reading Edward Hirsch’s new […]

“It always starts with a blue Volvo, driving away.”  —Still Life Las Vegas In some ways, my book must be a big pain in the ass for my publishers. I mean, they bought a novel, but it’s not just a straight up novel. There’s narrative art in it as well (the twenty-buck term for cartoons). […]

A week on the East Coast. One last hurrah before the blessed regularity of school kicks in. Four moves in six days. Beds of varying comfort. Uniformly good showers (except the one at that hotel where the water was perpetually tepid). These are the ways older folks measure their vacations. First stop: Rhinecliff, in upstate […]