Right Back Where We Started From Book Trailer
My book has a book trailer! MARCIA made it for me! She is the best!
Category Writing – Nonfiction
The Curious Reader By Mental Floss
So happy to have contributed to The Curious Reader by Mental Floss! It’s full of facts about authors and their books, from Jane Austen to JRR Tolkien. From the publisher: Readers rejoice From Mental Floss, an online destination for more…
USA Today Article: Is It Finally Time To Turn Against Workaholism?
For USA Today, I wrote an article about the consequences of hustle culture and its roots in the California Gold Rush. Excerpt: Whether it’s called hustle culture or toxic productivity, workaholism is now mainstream. For the past few years, the…
LitHub Essay: All in the Timing
For Literary Hub, I wrote an essay called All in the Timing: On Publishing a Novel Nine Years After Giving Up on It. It’s the publishing story of my novel, Right Back Where We Started From, which I finished way…
Article: Mary Astor’s Purple Diary, Old Hollywood’s Most Infamous Sex Scandal
For Mental Floss, I wrote about a juicy 1930s Hollywood scandal involving Mary Astor’s Purple Diaries. It’s one of the first Hollywood sex scandals–plus it inspired part of my novel, Right Back Where We Started From, which starts in 1930s…
Article: Flight of the Condors
Late last year, I went on a quest to see the critically endangered California Condor in the wild. I wrote about the experience for Alta. I’ve always wanted to see a California condor in the wild. It’s on a list…
Essay: Elegy For A Tree
My neighbors cut down their tree and banished all the birds from our yard. I wrote an essay about it for Entropy. The morning after the neighbors cut down the tree, my yard was quiet. The crows that for the…
Alta Essay: Searching for Mary Austin
For Alta Magazine, I wrote the essay Searching for Mary Austin: Life for the author of The Land of Little Rain was as hard as the inhospitable region she wrote about. Excerpt: Right before the coronavirus quarantine, I went to…
Article: Greedy Women In LitHub
I have a new article on LitHub, On the 19th-Century Food Writer Who Embraced Gluttony As a Virtue. It’s about how I read The Diary of a Greedy Woman by Elizabeth Robins Pennell, which I loved… until I didn’t.
Notable In Best American Essays 2020
Hey! I have a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2020. Read The First and Last Lives of Jack London.
Article: Searching for Mary Austin in Alta
I have a new article in Alta on Mary Austin, the author of The Land of Little Rain, published in 1903. I went to the Owen’s Valley to trace Austin’s route through the area and found out some juicy things–a…
Article: Humboldt Grown
For Alta, I wrote about growing up in Humboldt County, and the changing nature of the marijuana industry. Excerpt: In 2019, my hometown, Arcata, in Humboldt County, California, removed the statue of President William McKinley that had stood in the…