If BUMBLEBEE SEASON sounds interesting to you, please consider pre-ordering a copy. Pre-orders tell booksellers that folks are interested, which encourages them to carry the book. Pre-orders can help an author win more support from their publisher and more visibility in the press too. Ultimately, pre-orders help writers writing.
Read MoreBooks are good medicine. Besides entertaining us, reading lowers blood pressure, heart rate, and stress and improves sleep, memory, and concentration.
Read MoreI asked the writers to describe the landscape that most grounded them. I was hoping that identifying that distinctive place could establish is as a source, a creative wellspring to aid them in their writing. “What is the place that most grounds you, where you feel most yourself? Where does your genus loci live?” I asked.
Read MoreWhen you finish a book, there’s this other place at the end of writing, which is the space I inhabit now: Not writing. I’ve spent the last twelve months doing other things: revising a draft, promoting my other books, speaking to book clubs, and teaching writing workshops. I have not, subsequently, been lost in anything. I have no puzzle to work on in a sort of magical forgetting.
Read MoreThis is my favorite time of year to work on new projects, to dig into the messy process of generating fresh ideas by sifting through notes, scribbles, half-remembered dreams, and half-baked drafts to see where I might pick up a new thread.
Read MoreI struggle with summer. It’s too…summery. I know it works for others, but for me, I sort of white-knuckle it.
Read MoreWhen I was about twelve years old, my father gave me a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People by self-help expert Dale Carnegie. I remember him saying I might find it interesting and offering no further information. He walked away, leaving me standing in the hallway with the book in my hands.
Read MoreOnly a few pages into The Ferryman and His Wife, I was heartbroken that this story would ever end. With his spare, beautiful prose, Frode Grytten made me homesick for a landscape I’ve never seen—the remote and wintry fjords of Norway. Gorgeous and devastating in its simplicity, The Ferryman and His Wife takes us to the heart of things—life and how we live it but also how we leave it.
Read MoreI'm honored to be the inaugural guest writer for a new creative retreat at House on the Metolius in Central Oregon October 23-27.
Read MoreI’m really looking forward to sharing my new novel, Bumblebee Season, with readers in April 2026.
Read MoreI’d come to think of the Denver International Airport as purgatory long before this moment. I’m so accustomed to getting stranded there that my girlfriends and I alert each other when we’re passing through in hopes that when we get stuck, one of our group will be there too and can meet up to pass the time. This has happened not infrequently.
Read MoreMy heartiest thanks to all the wonderful folks who hosted and supported Crow Talk’s paperback release this spring.
Read MoreJoin me at these live events to celebrate the paperback edition of my nationally bestselling novel, Crow Talk.
Read MoreJoin me for an intimate writing retreat October 23-27, 2025 in Central Oregon.
Read MoreI get to visit Mexico every winter and I look forward to morning swims in the Sea of Cortez. I only swam once this winter. I was tormented by some invisible sea creatures that left painful welts all over my arms and torso. Other obstacles arose—big surf, early wind, cold temperatures. The barriers piled up.
Read MoreSpring is just around the corner and I’m looking forward to celebrating the paperback release of CROW TALK with events around the West.
Read MoreWhen the new year begins, I always find myself wishing for an extra month. Wouldn’t it be great to have a full month between December and January? But there’s no such thing. Now 2025 continues to hurtle by with hardship everywhere—wildfires, wars, and in our nation’s capital, a pending transition that has the world on edge.
Read MoreThere are specific endings in these waning days of the year—a first draft, my early fifties, and the conclusion of various chapters in my life. I’m in the middle of other things—puppydom most prominently.
Read MoreMy new book has official fledged into the world and is (hopefully) flying into the hands of readers. If your book club is reading Crow Talk and you'd like me to pop in, drop me a line.
Read MoreMark your calendars for April 30 from 6 p.m. to p.m. at The Ruins in Hood River.
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