Blog

The gurney was hard, and I’d been holding still for fifteen long minutes. Tears pooled in my ears, and my nose itched. I took a breath deeper than I would have thought possible. “That’s [...]

Two years ago I was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. I’m okay now, and with the experience receding in the rear-view mirror, I can finally write and talk about it. From that impulse comes [...]

One morning, back in the city after a camping trip to the high desert, I find in my inbox “The Owner of the Night” by poet Mark Doty. “Orion’s head over heels above the [...]

I’m so tired of humans, myself included. I live in a city and that means hordes of us at every turn, even when we’re supposed to be staying away from each other.  I saw [...]

Writers work so hard to get published -- we can forget that some publishing scenarios are like bad marriages you spend years trying to get out of. Case in point: in 2012 I signed [...]

Afraid you’ve waited too long to write up that amazing trip you once took? Consider the writer whose work appeared in The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 8 (2012). Her essay focused on a [...]

  Now that in-flight magazines are on the wane, and my favorite, Southwest Magazine, has folded, I want to make sure the features I wrote for them are still available online. Here's a feature I [...]

Most of my friends can’t fathom why I like spending long hours behind the wheel, the road spooling out behind me. They especially don’t get why I like to camp along the way, preferably [...]

I'm in love with an owl. And judging from the dozens of people under the owl tree in Golden Gate Park, I’m not the only one. In a towering Monterey pine across from [...]