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I’m a writer, artist and designer who thinks way too much, and tries to see the beauty in the world.

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  • Ghost Ranch Notes/July 31, 2014

    If you’re from the Midwest, it’s hard to imagine the colors at Ghost Ranch. Even if you’ve seen Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings and dozens of beautiful photographs. My Ohio home, lush as it is, looks faded in comparison, dully monochromatic. I feel like I’ve been colorblind until now, and am suddenly cured. New Mexico is red-orange…

  • Ghost Ranch, part 1

          “It is all very beautiful and magical here–a quality which cannot be described. You have to live it and breathe it, let the sun bake it into you. The skies and land are so enormous, and the detail so precise and exquisite that wherever you are you are isolated in a glowing…

  • The Cloud is up at Black Denim Lit!

    So excited–my newest sci-fi short story, The Cloud, was selected for inclusion in the June issue of Black Denim Lit. Read it and let me know what you think! Thanks to my workshop and Avery for reading early drafts; your comments were so helpful. http://www.bdlit.com/the-cloud.html

  • Indiana University Writer’s Conference, June 2014

    I’m just back from an amazing week in Bloomington, Indiana, where I attended the IU Writer’s Conference—for anyone considering this conference in the future, I’d highly recommend it. Come well-rested—you’ll be too inspired to sleep much. Teachers included the amazing Jim Elledge, who just won a Lambda award for creative non-fiction; Christine Sneed, inspiring master…

  • This spoke to me tonight:

    I would love to live Like a river flows, Carried by the surprise Of its own unfolding. –John O’Donohue

  • On Dreams

    Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? –Edgar Allen Poe In 1849, Poe wrote, “It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.” Dreams, in other words, could be viewed as endless…

  • Unmoored

    For the second time in two months, my computer system has died. I’ve tried all the forms of digital CPR that I know, to no avail. Last night, I fell asleep with visions of data recovery dancing in my head. I’d reformatted (ERASED!) my hard drive, zapping out years of data, and then launched Time…

  • Black ice

    I turned. The car kept going straight, as if the steering wheel were a toy. We slid across an invisible glaze of ice, heading straight for the concrete barrier wall at the curve of the on-ramp, picking up speed. I braked and turned into the skid. The ABS brakes rattled; the car’s rear end swung…

  • On long messy first drafts

    Life is one long messy first draft. The narrative arc is, if you are lucky, a long one. It struck me today: this is why I like writing fiction. It allows me to polish dialogue, to give my characters just the right words and actions to drive the story to its conclusion. Yes, fictional characters…

  • Into the future

    Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life. – Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment It’s January 1, 2014. Last night’s countdown has me thinking about the ultimate countdown. According to the Federal Government’s Life Expectancy Calculator, I have…