I have written in my bio that I’m a Mexican American/WASP which is a lazy description of my background but it’s three words where I don’t have space for fifty. The Mexican is the important word for this story. I grew up with a Spanish last name and a tan in California. This means people […]
Read MoreFood is sacred. Food is culture, religion, tradition, civilization. Few rituals don’t involve food in some definition. It might be as simple as a pinch of saffron or a sip of wine. It might be grand meals of celebration. It might be the self-denial of food making the return all that more important. That makes […]
Read MoreI am dyslexic. I’ve blogged about it before and it is stated in my bio. I’m also a writer. To most people these two things don’t go together. How can someone be a writer if they can’t read or spell or do anyone of dozens of things people who know nothing about dyslexia assume? In […]
Read MoreMy grandmother passed away two weeks ago. We buried her last Thursday. She was 96, her mind was mostly gone, and she’d been given two weeks to live fifteen months ago. She took a couple of deep breaths in her sleep then just stopped. There are worse ways of going. I’d like to say she […]
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I love the Ghostbusters. When I was a kid it was my favourite Saturday morning cartoon* (I didn’t see the movie, I was three). Egon and Winston were my first great loves, though even then I understood that Egon’s first true love was science. I saw every episode, many written by J. Michael Straczynski who […]
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On January 11, 2008 Sir Edmond Hillary, known as Sir Ed to his fellow New Zealanders, the first person to make it to the top of Everest, passed away. I went to see him as he lay in state in the Holy Trinity Cathedral the night before his funeral. My father has always been an […]
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The other day I read an article on sfgate about a group of girls in California, just north of where I grew up, who were trying to officially join the Boy Scouts despite there being Girl Scout groups available to them. They feel they are a bitter fit for the Boy Scouts because “they (Girl […]
Read MoreI love television. I know that is heresy for an author to admit but I really do love it. I also love books, I’ve been reading obsessively since I was three, but along with that have a deep relationship with a lot of television. In fact I want to be a television writer when I […]
Read MoreLet’s start with stating that this is all my personal opinion. M’kay? I recently attended my first writing conference. It was put on by the Romance Writers of New Zealand and it was absolutely lovely. Everyone was nice and supportive and there were lots of great speakers. I knew going into it that I would […]
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Yesterday I watched an episode of Friends all the way through. This is something worth mentioning because despite being on air for a solid decade I never saw it. I wasn’t actively avoiding it. I have nothing against the show or the actors on it. I’ve seen bits and pieces of it. I’ve just never […]
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