This year marks the hundredth anniversary of one of my favorite comic novels, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos. For Alta, I wrote about Loos’s journey from child actor in San Diego to one of the first and funniest female…
For Alta, I wrote about Langston Hughes’s time in Carmel, California in 1933. As a Communist and a black man, he became the target of Conservative aggression and violence. So he wrote his short story collection The Ways of White…
My article Flight of the Condors, originally published in Alta Magazine, was a finalist in the 64th Southern California Journalism Awards. Read the full list of winners here.
For Alta Magazine, I wrote an ode to my favorite childhood bookstore, Tin Can Mailman in Arcata, California. I also wrote a round-up of North Coast Bookstores.
For Mental Floss, I wrote 10 Juicy Facts About Mary Astor’s Purple Diary, Old Hollywood’s Most Infamous Sex Scandal. This scandal was a huge inspiration for my novel, Right Back Where We Started From. Poor Mary Astor was done dirty.
I was invited by Alta Magazine to discuss my article When Mark Twain Canceled Bret Harte on Alta Live. I was joined by Russell Jeung, professor of Asian American studies and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of…
For Alta Magazine I wrote about cloud seeding. Did you know we already have the ability to increase precipitation in clouds? And that we’ve been doing it since the 1950s? And that the technology was invented by Kurt Vonnegut’s brother?…
I have a new article in Alta Magazine! It’s about the 30 year literary feud between Mark Twain and Bret Harte. 30 years! That Mark Twain could really hold a grudge. Read about it here.
Over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, I wrote about gothic horror, Shirley Jackson, and California Victorians: RIGHT BEFORE SHIRLEY JACKSON began working on her 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House, a postcard depicting a California mansion started…
My book has a book trailer! MARCIA made it for me! She is the best!
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…
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…