Today would have been my brother George’s 64th birthday. He has been gone now for ten years. Hard to believe, but true. He is never far from my mind, however, even if it’s been a decade since I last saw him. George was three years older than me. He was my big brother, my childhood…

Tonight I am sitting in a warm (well, slightly drafty) house while outside, the night is clear-skied and a cold 20 degrees (heading down to 18 before the night is through). Today, during the day, I saw a thermometer reading of 14 degrees even though the sun was shining. The wind, coming straight out of…

I just finished uploading the work of my students for the Scholastic Artists and Writers contest. A frustrating bit of effort given that my internet here in Texas seems to be running exceedingly slow this evening. So, three hours later… Still, the submissions are in and now we wait until the end of the month…

I have been working with one of my creative writing students for the past 3 hours via telephone and the Internet on her short story for the Scholastic Artists and Writers contest, the oldest and most prestigious writing contest for youth in the United States. The deadline is January 6th, Monday, and we are in…

I am sitting in the green room in our house in Texas. It is past midnight and cold outside. I am out of words. While here, I talk to more people in one day than I do in a week in CA. That isn’t exactly true, but I interact a lot more here and by…

We have arrived safely at our Texas home, making the 1400 mile trek listening primarily to “The Moth” podcasts. These are real stories told by either storytellers or regular ole folks about their lives, and because it was the end of the year, we heard the “Best of 2013” stories all day long. If you…

I have no great emotion with the ending of this year and the beginning of the next save for the surprise that we’re well into the 2000’s at this point. How did that happen? I remember the ’50’s and 60’s a little too well to be able to compute that we’re right at the cusp…