In the summer of 1973, about six weeks after I had graduated from high school, one of my friends from elementary school, Danny Lopez, was shot dead on the main street of my hometown in the San Joaquin Valley. It was a […]
Ted Sturgeon used to refer to something he called the spaces between the lines. A reader may see only a blank after the period of one sentence and the capital letter of the next sentence, and move right past it without any […]
Book View Café has issued quite a number of anthologies and multi-author collections over the years. It’s only natural that a group made up of so many members would from time to time offer a cornucopia to the book-buying public. One endeavor […]
The reason I got involved in family history research was the standard reason. I wanted to know more about not just the forebears I personally knew, i.e. my parents and grandparents, but those who had lived in earlier times, before I was […]
Identifying the genesis of a story isn’t always possible, but sometimes it is clear as day. I’ve been in the mood lately to acknowledge influences to my creative process. Those of you who’ve been keeping up with my recent blogs may have […]
I have never dipped a goose feather into an inkwell and scribbled words on paper, much less onto parchment or some other substitute for paper. Romantic as it may sound to do so just once in order to acquaint myself with the […]
I am a lucky man. I’m the father of my daughter. I’m the father of my son. Can’t get much luckier than that. I remember that feeling, though, toward the end of the first pregnancy. Everything was going well, yet until the […]
On the night of January 19, 1979, Jerry Honda was feeling good. He was saying good-by to workout rust. He had, as so many karate students before him, let his foot off the gas after achieving his initial black belt rank. That […]
A few weeks ago I blogged about the creation of the cover of The Wizard’s Nemesis, the third volume of my trilogy, The War of the Dragons. What I didn’t mention is that although it was the cover for the third volume, […]
We’re so familiar with the phenomenon of information spreading ultra quickly and widely that we have a metaphor for it. We say the news item (or the joke or gossip or cat video) has gone viral. Good metaphor, I think. Colorful. Clever. […]
