A few months ago, I had the pleasure of visiting New York City for the first time. Among my sightseeing destinations was Greenwich Village and the Stonewall Inn. A tiny place, as places where real history is made often are, it seemed somehow smaller than its role in the collective imagination of gay Americana,...
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A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. -Virginia Woolf It all began with an empty room. My oldest daughter had moved out and her former bedroom was stacked with boxes, unwanted furniture, and the trappings she refused to either move, or part with. Almost every day...
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I was at the crossroads and had to make a decision.  To stop in New Orleans or not?  The thing I remember best about New Orleans are the Hurricanes.  Not the ones involving devastating winds and property destruction, but the other insidiously tragic kind.  Those ginormous triple-liquor-laden drinks that cause tippling tourists to fall...
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“Just leave me here in the sun by the patio door, if you don’t mind,” Sophia had said to the nurse just before she left and now she was alone. Directly across the room, Nefi, an eleven-year-old captured Monk parrot was on his perch, preening his left wing all the way down to the blue-green...
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My family never turned on the air conditioner until June first. It was just a rule. No matter how hot it was, the air did not go on until that date. It was shut off on September 1. Another rule. I grew up on a farm in Iowa and we didn’t even have air...
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