Fiction, memoir, travel & essays
How Cuffey’s Cove, a once thriving town on the Mendocino coast that is now a ghost town with 3 cemeteries, became the inspiration for the historical novel, The Relentless Harvest. Continue Reading →
The Alcatraz Lighthouse in San Francisco Bay was the first lighthouse built on the Pacific Coast. On June 1, 2014, it turned 160 years old. Or did it? Continue Reading →
My discovery of 19th century African American lithographer and painter Grafton Tyler Brown began with a search for a character for my novel-in-progress. Little did I know I would uncover such an intriguing story about an important and overlooked figure in northwestern art. Little did I know that the story would be found in a book that had yet to be released.
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Two letters dotted the six or seven tabs in my browser window like spring mushrooms after a heavy rain: OK. OK was complicated. An enigma. It had a history. Continue Reading →
Passing through the village of Albion in Mendocino County, it’s hard to believe it played a pivotal role in one of the most dramatic periods in California history. Traveling north on Highway 1, you’ll reach a stretch of road that is mercifully free of the endless hairpin turns that plagued you farther south. You’ll settle into a relaxed drive through undisturbed ranch land as the Pacific Ocean disappears and reappears in darting vistas on your left. You’ll cross the picturesque white bridge over Salmon Creek, noting the tranquil Whitesboro Cove at the creek’s mouth. In a few hundred yards, you’ll see a sign for Albion. Then two roads — one winding up to Ledford House on a bluff to the left, the other climbing a hill to the Albion Store and Post Office on the right. In another click, you’ll blur past a scattering of houses that trail down the Continue Reading →
Travelers’ Tales, publishers of the Best Travel Writing anthology series, just announced the winners of their Eighth Annual Solas Awards for best travel writing of the year. My travel memoir “Inside the Tower” was awarded Bronze Prize. “Inside the Tower” is a story of discovery, one that begins in a bookshop, browsing a poetry anthology, and ends as a quest to understand the late poet during a visit to his home in Carmel. The story has been published on the Best Travel Writing website and may be included in one of the yearly travel anthologies.
First appearing on the Renegade Image website in October 2011, this essay debates published expert opinion that the work of Vivian Maier, nanny and amateur photographer, should not be considered a serious contribution to the art.
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