As a wedding present for my niece, I compiled a book of my grandmother’s recipes with some old photos. I unearthed wonderful pictures of my parents and her and it became quite an emotional experience. Here they are, Mom, Dad, and Grandma, all so young. During the research, I came to know my grandmother in … Read more

As a writer, my life is awash in words, words, words…….. One of my favorite books is my nice big thesaurus, although it’s a lot heavier than my software version. Words are my building blocks, and sometimes I don’t even know what I think until I put them down. I love words and the worlds … Read more

My hairdresser is a very cool young woman who looks like Justin Bieber one month, then next time she’s a wicked Alice in Wonderland. She has great taste and wields a mean scissors. We visit several times a year. Our chats range from Netflix to Breaking Bad to our latest travels and my writing projects. … Read more

I read Black Beauty again as an adult. A child’s mom. A dog’s mom. It was so disturbing as to be painful. I still cringe at the thought of a bit in the mouth. The power of this book comes partly from being told in first person, i.e. the narrator is Black Beauty and we … Read more

Asian art has always been my thing. I studied it in college and have traveled to many of the sites. The L.A. County Museum of Art has a world-famous collection and it’s always a joy to visit. This time I enjoyed a wonderful Shiva Nataraja, the Dancing Shiva. An important Indian icon is the goddess … Read more

Now that I’m home from Left Coast Crime-Monterey, I’m still wondering, are all writers’ conferences so much fun or is there something about the mystery/crime gang? I try to avoid the genre wars yet it must be noted that crime fiction has a strong moralistic bent and mysteries often reveal more than who done it. … Read more

Welcome. Bienvenue. Namaste. Thanks for dropping by. I have written a few guest blogs, but this is my first one at “home,” for my very own new site. I’ve been working hard on it with the uber-talented designer Maddee James of xuni.com and we are both very proud. Please let us know what you think. … Read more