We Bought A Camper Van

Kyle’s dream has come true. We bought a camper van. It’s a 1996 Roadtrek Popular 170. Here’s the inside:

Essay In The Washington Post

I wrote an essay for The Washington Post! It’s about how becoming a mother has made me a better writer. A sample: Throughout my pregnancy, I weathered comments about how difficult writing would soon become, all while obsessing about how…

Learn To Write From The Movies: Kill Your Darlings

I have a new Learn To Write From The Movies up at Barrelhouse. It’s about Kill Your Darlings, a movie about Allen Ginsberg starring Daniel Radcliffe. A sample: Lesson 4: Do Weird 1940s Drugs. Naturally, Burroughs suggests they do drugs.…

Cabin In Mt Tamalpais

A couple of weeks, friends invited us to spend the night in a cabin in Mt Tamalpais. Can you believe the view off the balcony? We had a great time: lots of hiking, board games, listening to people playing music,…

Poetry Foundation: Bohemian Tragedy

I wrote an essay for the Poetry Foundation on the poet George Sterling and the Carmel artist colony. It’s a crazy story about artistic utopia, California Bohemians, scandals, affairs, and a suicide pact. Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and HL Mencken…

Disneyland, Othello, and Hikes

Here are some things we’ve been doing lately: Disneyland Even though I’ve lived in California all my life, I’ve never been to Disneyland. So we took Gideon down there, and had a great time. They do what they do well.…

2017 Was A Dumb Year, Hello 2018!

While everyone was moaning about 2016, personally it was a great year for me. But 2017 was pretty dumb. Just before Christmas, Kyle’s grandmother Ruth passed away. We just came back from her funeral in Kentucky. For much of the…

I Was Interviewed By CNN

I forgot to post this on here! I wonder what else I’ve forgotten. Back in August, I was Interviewed By CNN about Donald Trump. They wanted my opinion because of my article on Vice about How Reality TV Made Donald…

Learn To Write From The Movies: Genius

It’s the next installment of my Barrelhouse column, Learn To Write From the Movies. This time it’s about the movie Genius. Genius is a 2016 movie about Thomas Wolfe, who wrote Look Homeward, Angel, and his editor, Maxwell Perkins. The…