These days, it’s popular to think of oneself as a “Rule Breaker” … a “Rebel;” and, to some extent, that’s fun and exciting. Truthfully, where can we as writers hedge and when must the rules be doggedly followed in order to be...
Don’t Come Into My Backyard “Write in your own backyard!” seemed to be the cry of the masses when I was shifting from being a non-fiction business writer, journalist, and essayist to a fiction writer eight years ago. Yet, my heart and mind...
A journalism and corporate writing background conditioned me into thinking I was ready to swim out to the Island of Non-Fiction and string up a nice hammock between two palms. I’d drop a lobster trap off the rocky side of the island, carefully keep my matches dry, and...
No running water, no inside plumbing, no way to run to the store for bread, meat, or butter. The name of the game was survival. In our current world, it’s hard to conceive of what it’s like to feed a lot of mouths when you have empty pockets and no...
In the movie “Smoke Signals,” the main characters, Thomas and Victor, hitch a ride off the Coeur D’Alene Indian Reservation with a young woman who drives her car around the Rez all day in reverse because that’s the only direction the car will go in. I...
