First public reading of “together”

My latest book, together, is also my first book of poetry.

[ Buy Now: paperback | hardcover | ebook ]

Each week in 2022, my partner, Antoinette, took a picture which I then used as a prompt to write an original poem. The result is a collection of 52 unique, compelling, and intriguing pairings… one from each week of the year.

I designed the book and cover, created my own publishing imprint under my coaching LLC, and published the book through a print-on-demand supplier. I’ve even added some merch!

Last weekend, Antoinette and I participated in a panel of authors and artists, where we read from the book and shared the photographs. We also talked about our collaborative process and how the book came to be—an accident, in a way.

It’s always a vulnerable feeling, sharing your creative output with the world. Going up on stage to read it out loud is a new thing for me.

It was a blast! And the audience members who stayed for the reception after had very nice things to say about it all.

Please get your copy today. The hardcover is way more expensive, but it’s pretty nice. And if you’ve read it, please rate it!

Cover Reveal – LIFELIKE

I recently redesigned the cover for my book Lifelike. I think the old cover (which was beautifully executed by my cover artist) was poorly directed. This new cover does a better job and, I hope, will generate additional interest in the book. I am convinced the cover was turning people who would have loved the book away from it. What do you think? Drop a comment or email me directly to let me know.

Writing on the go, #NaNoWriMo 2021 day one

Off to a good start for NaNoWriMo 2021. I managed 1,900 words this morning on a new plot line in my growing fantasy series. This is going to be a multiyear project. This will be my 12th attempt at NaNoWriMo since 2005, having “won” five times. My last win was also part of the current series I’m working on.

In 2005, of course, I did not have an iPad, and I can’t remember exactly how I wrote that first novel. On a laptop, I suppose. Later, I embraced the minimalist mobile approach. I remember going to write-ins at cafés, setting up my Palm TX and my bluetooth keyboard, and drawing stares and questions from other writers. That bluetooth keyboard folded in half so was not much larger than the Palm. It was also flaky af and required several reconnects to the Palm every hour. But it was great for writing on airplanes, in cafés, and really anywhere I could set the keyboard on my lap and the palm where I could see it. I wrote three novels on that setup.

I can only hope that my writing quality has improved as much as technology has in the last 16 years.

 

 

 

Ghost Breath – a short #FictionFriday story

This story originally appeared more than a decade ago on my old blog as part of an online writing group called #FictionFriday. The prompt was “a character gets three wishes,” and this was one of those stories that just flowed from the first line to the last, without me knowing really what was going to happen next. With Halloween approaching, a ghost story seems appropriate to resurrect.

Her mama called it ghost breath, this late September fog that lifted from the nearby pond and swirled slowly around Clara’s ankles and calves. It was thicker over near the old, wooden bridge where the stream came down from Parker’s Hill and fed the marsh that became Braden’s Pond. A ghost breath night, Mama used to say, was a sure omen of death. Soon the ghost breath would swell until Clara couldn’t see the stooped, stubby trees across the old gravel access road. Already the bridge had been swallowed up by the silent mist as darkness gradually defeated a reluctant twilight.

Clara sat on the embankment, the train tracks a few feet behind her, and watched the pond disappear into the darkness. Gravel poked through her thin skirt, but the night was warm and she didn’t mind the mist seeping through her threadbare school shirt. The moisture gathered and made the shirt cling like a second skin to her shoulders and breasts. Clara closed her eyes and imagined Mama out there gliding across the pond, floating above it in the air like a graceful dancer, pale and white and glowing. Maybe Mama was the lonely soul bringing the ghost breath with her tonight, back to visit the living. Maybe she’d come to take Clara away with her.

Clara opened her eyes and was startled to see the fog glaring bright-white at her from the direction of the old bridge. The brightness was moving, slowly, creeping closer and growing. Her heart jumped and thumped as she held her breath and barely dared to think of Mama coming to her as she’d just envisioned. The feeling lasted only a moment, though, as the brightness clarified into two burning white dots ringed with rainbow coronas: headlights. And now she could feel the vibration of its motor not far off, now sense the rumble of its tires on the gravel road, coming nearer.

For a moment, she hoped the car would drive on by and not see her. Her white shirt might blend in with the fog, her gray skirt with the gravel. But it was Friday night, and as the car lurched to a halt only ten yards away, Clara knew it was already too late to try to run away. She watched the driver’s door open, saw Charlie step out and say something. Nick popped out from the other side, laughing with his evil-looking sneer. Finally, Bill slid out from the back, pushing his greasy, black hair back and slouching behind Charlie. The three boys sauntered toward her.

Sometimes, Clara knew, her deafness could be an asset. Now she tried not to imagine all the things the boys were saying to each other. Even ten feet away the stink of bourbon flaked off them and melted into the mist swirling around them all. Maybe she could run after all. Maybe she could make it to the marsh and they’d let her go.

Without hesitating more, Clara pushed off the embankment and drove hard past Charlie, straight into a pounding run aiming for the bridge. They would catch her if she didn’t get a good head start into the darkness, into the ghost breath. She passed Charlie, but Bill lashed out with his foot. Pain seared into Clara’s shin, and she fell, her hands ripped open by the sharp gravel of the road, her knees ground into the dirt. Then they were on top of her, before she knew what was happening, and they hit her, hard in the legs, or maybe they were kicking. The pain in her leg and now a new wet pain on the side of her head dazed her, and she was only partially aware of the skirt being torn from her amid the stench of new sweat and stale cigarettes and bourbon. She was pushed and rolled and yanked like a rag doll, and every inch of her hurt so much.

Mama, she thought, Mama please come help me. Please come take me away with you.

She closed her eyes and retreated inside herself, clinging to the vision of Mama gliding across the pond, a shimmering vision of death, vengeance–salvation. Unable to hear, choosing not to see, Clara shut out the outside world and ignored her body and what was being done to it. She imagined Mama coming to her, kneeling beside her, hugging her like she used to. She felt Mama’s arms around her, felt Mama’s heartbeat, Mama’s warmth.

“Mama,” Clara whispered to the vision, “Mama take me with you. I wish I was dead. I wish to be with you.”

Her mama looked her in the eye with sad calm. “Hush, Clara. Don’t say that. Why, you’re just fourteen. You’ve got so much good ahead. Don’t wish that. Wish something else.” The vision embraced Clara again, this time with strength and solidity.

“Then Mama,” Clara whispered, “I wish Charlie would die. I wish Nick would die. And I especially wish Bill would die.”

Mama pulled back from Clara and looked into her eyes again, sadness now mixed with that look she used to give when she was very proud of Clara. Mama nodded slowly and began drifting away, backwards so they kept looking into each other’s eyes, until the bright figure merged into the mist and faded into the brightness that now was all around Clara.

Later. How much later, Clara had no idea. She had fallen asleep. No, she had passed out. She knew because she felt the pain growing as she became aware, as she floated up out of the depths of unconsciousness. The pain, everywhere, so intense she could barely gasp in enough breath.

Then, a familiar rumble began building in the ground under her. The gravel vibrated beneath her, and she opened her eyes. In less than a minute, the freight train would barrel past. All was darkness around her. The mist still loitered, now still as a frightened rabbit, waiting for something. The train would stir up the mist good, Clara thought.

In the distance, she saw the glimmer of the train’s headlamp glowing small and orange-white, a little sun in the dark mist. It was going fast tonight, Clara could feel it in the vibration of the gravel. She pulled herself to her knees, then stood up. The car was no longer next to her, but the stench of bourbon still lingered. She felt her head, found the blood still sticky in her hair.

Fifteen seconds, perhaps. The train was heavy, too. It was an insistent rumble, an unstoppable determination. She looked at the tracks on top of the embankment, their rails black as onyx, almost sucking what little light there was around her. Then she saw it. The car. Parked on the tracks. She could see the boys’ heads through the windows. They looked asleep, maybe.

As the train bore down on the car, Clara realized it was too late to save the boys. She felt a shudder through her chest that must have been an urgent blast on the train’s whistle, then a grating grinding as sparks leapt from underneath the engine. In the bright white of the train’s headlamp, the car became a brilliant centerpiece in the black surroundings. Charlie in the driver’s seat, asleep. Nick in the passenger seat, asleep. Bill in the back, lifting his head, his eyes growing wide as he watched his million-pound death pour down upon him at eighty miles an hour…

Clara did not close her eyes at the impact. She did not flinch. She watched in vague curiosity as the car first buckled and shrank, then sprang away from the train like a bead of oil off a hot griddle, up and away, off the tracks into the night beyond.

Limping, she turned to the gravel road and began slowly trudging toward the bridge where the ghost breath still lay thicker than anywhere. Away in the distance, over the pond, she thought she saw a shimmer of pale white gliding away from her and disappearing into the mist.

Bitterness – #poetry

bitterness

You say someone pissed in your champagne?

Well.
In a sweltering kitchen—
curses and elbows
and the clatter of pan on stove—
patience gets minced,
and kindness pulverized.
Tempers simmer under jittery lids
until it feels like someone has attacked your soul
with a grater soaked in salt and lemon.

Although some romanticize this chaos,
calling it a vigorous dance
or a whirlwind of ecstasy,
it’s more like a knife fight—
a frenetic self-defense against
the relentless assault of little time
and vast expectation.

So, madame,
when you suggest
that someone pissed in your champagne,
I feel obligated to defend the staff,
who have no time for such shenanigans.

And please,
before you protest,
I feel further compelled to point out
that we do not
in fact
serve champagne.

So, with this knowledge,
you may give careful consideration
to the possibility that,
in the end,
the one who pissed in your glass
is yourself.

junior varsity – #poetrymonth #poetry

junior varsity

At the crack of the gun
they lurch and surge
with all the chaos and color
of three hundred
discarded candy wrappers
whipped by a summer gust

they come
glowering
prepared
determined
charged with anticipation
of the pain to come
and the deferred joy
of the finish line
three miles away

We parents
behind our cameras
bark inspiration and optimism
imagining rather than feeling
the ground tremble
under the pounding ferocity
as they gallop past.

Barriers – #PoetryMonth #poetry

barriers

cheap whiskey, neat
in an antiseptic hotel bar
across a broad table
its fake wood grain sticky
with syrupy drips
and saccharine words

secondary colleagues
chatter and whine
about pretentious plenaries
and boring breakouts

glass empty, bill paid
duty complete, I rise
offering feigned regrets
to cover one final glance
at your mahogany hair
and flushed cheeks
and tired green eyes

you catch me
at the elevator
we both push fourteen
and laugh, surprised

on the slow rise
I relish the strawberry scent
of your lip gloss
and ask after your kids (good)
your job (fine)
your husband (oh, you know)

what are the odds
in a hotel with 2,000 rooms
yours would adjoin mine

as we mumble our goodnights
in the dull fluorescence
I wonder if you also wish
that the only thing separating us
was a thin panel of drywall

Final day for free books – March 27

Today (March 27) is the last of a 5-day run where all my books are free on Amazon for Kindle. Get them all here (click title or cover for the Amazon page): LIFELIKE For teens and adults Have you ever loved someone who could kill you with their paintbrush? Jewel’s artistic talent is like magic, as if her brush were a witch’s wand, not a simple painting tool. She thinks she could surpass the old masters, if she could only escape her parents’ plastic existence. When she’s finally out of high school, she flees to San Francisco and a fresh start. What she doesn’t know is that her talent is fueled by an untamed and dangerous magic which makes her an unwilling threat to the people she loves. When a mysterious, alluring art teacher promises to train her to control and harness that magic, Jewel puts her future–and her body–into his seductive hands. She soon discovers she’s not his first pupil, however, and as she learns the truth from the girls who came before, Jewel is faced with a terrible choice: Give up painting and spend her life running away, or risk her life–and her very soul–to destroy the man she’s fallen in love with. SEMPER – first in the “New Eden” trilogy For teens and adults Three hundred years after nuclear war destroyed most of the Earth, Southshaw exists as a lush oasis in a desolate, charred world steeped in radiation. The Ancients were able to keep out the mutants and preserve Southshaw’s mountain valley, establishing a peaceful and thriving community built on faith and simplicity of life. Technology is forbidden, as the pursuit of knowledge is believed to have led to the nuclear apocalypse twelve generations ago. It is Semper’s duty to manage the community and provide spiritual leadership to Southshaw’s citizens. Dane is in line to become the thirteenth Semper of Southshaw. On the eve of his sixteenth birthday, however, he finds that the ghost stories from his childhood and the frightening tales of mutants in the north are not just legends. But the legends are not entirely true, either. And suddenly he’s faced with a choice he never expected to make: should he take his place as Semper, obeying his cruel uncle and twelve generations of Southshaw Truth, or should he follow his heart and risk exile and death to unearth the real truth? An exotic huntress, a mythical ghost-man, and a tailor’s daughter hold the keys to his answer. And to the survival of Southshaw–and possibly all of humanity–itself. FORSADA – second in the “New Eden” trilogy For teens and adults Lupay isn’t afraid of fighting, but what can one girl do against an army? Thousands of Southshawans, whipped into a war frenzy by a fundamentalist demagogue, are poised to sweep in and crush her home of Tawtrukk, and Lupay is powerless to stop it. Or is she? Driven into hiding and pursued even into the depths of the mountain, Lupay and her friends do their best to resist. But resistance won’t withstand the onslaught forever, and ultimately Lupay must choose: flee into the radioactive barrens of the Desolation, or rise up and fight fire with fire, like the legendary Tawtrukk warrior queen, Forsada. FREDA – final book of the “New Eden” trilogy For teens and adults In the aftermath of war, false friendships, failed loyalties, and new alliances make truth difficult to see clearly. The battle for Tawtrukk is over, but the madman that started it all has escaped, and now he has instructions for detonating the nuclear bomb that stood dormant in the Southshaw chapel for thirteen generations. If he can’t be stopped in time, Freda will have to find some way to lead the survivors to a new home over the mountains, into a land she’d always been taught was an uninhabitable wasteland of smoldering radiation. Cryptic clues left by Southshaw’s Founders three hundred years ago suggest that the land may not be as desolate as everyone thought, but can those clues be trusted? Can Freda unite the bitter, angry remnants of the Southshaw, Tawtrukk, and Subterra peoples? Can she get them to follow the clues when many think they lead to death instead of to the paradise Freda believes they promise? THE BAD LIE For 3rd to 6th graders Jay had hoped to spend the summer after fifth grade at his dad’s in New York, but instead he’s stuck in boring day care while his mom works and his friends bike around and have fun. Jay’s weekly bright spot is the day care’s golf outings at Fair Elm Country Club on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. Although his cool friends make fun of him for being in day care, he likes golfing with Becca, a smart girl on the fringe of the popular group who’s really helping him improve his putting. When his friends convince him to “have some fun” one night with their bikes, things turn bad. Jay’s efforts to stay out of trouble backfire, causing even more problems and almost destroying his friendship with Becca. On the verge of starting middle school, Jay has to choose: He can either lie and keep his popular friends while avoiding punishment, or he can own up what he’s done and win back Becca’s respect.

one afternoon – #poetry but not #poetrymonth poetry

one afternoon

It rests in the rolling shallows,
this boat that once had a name
and a worthy purpose,
bumping against its crumbling dock
in the absent-minded rhythm
of the water’s eternal rise and fall.
Cracked and clouded windows
stare at us with a vacant scowl
like marbled eyes in the rest home
when other people’s grandchildren
tiptoe past the open door.

You and I meander the trampled grass,
reminisce around rocky inlets,
taste the spiced breeze of low tide.
We stroll along the polished train tracks,
their shiny new gravel peppered with
discarded, rust-crusted spikes.