Category Archives: Books

Blazing Gratitude

Books

image

I’m immensely grateful to all those who supported me during Blazing Laptops Write-A-Thon 2014. Thanks to your donations, I was able to meet my goal and raise $1,000 for San Diego Writers, Ink. I wrote 4,000 words toward my novel in progress, and ate a kilo of peanut M&Ms.

When I moved from Los Angeles to San Diego in 2006, I was suspicious of the literary scene in my new city. I believed that San Diego couldn’t possibly compete with Los Angeles with its wealth of bookstores, workshops and reading series. So I ignored it. That decision didn’t work out so well.

After two years of going it alone, I signed up for a class at San Diego Writers, Ink. I had such a good experience, I signed up for a weekly read and critique workshop. I worked with an extremely talented and dedicated group of writers, and I’m not just blowing smoke here: three of the writers in that group got book deals for their projects. I would go on to read my work at the Ink Spot, teach classes at SDWI, and serve on its board.

San Diego Writers, Ink is where I honed my craft, became a novelist, and found the most supportive community of writers I’ve ever been a part of. That’s why I’m such a strident supporter of Blazing Laptops. I want to do my part to make sure SDWI continues its mission to support the literary arts in San Diego.

This year we fell just short of our goal. There’s still time to donate before Blazing Laptops closes its books at the end of the week. Please consider making SDWI part of your charitable giving for 2014. And if you’d like to participate in Blazing Laptops next year, message me and I’ll tell you all about it. 

Last Chance

Books,

Tomorrow morning at 9am I’ll begin an eight-hour write-a-thon to help raise funds for San Diego Writers, Ink, a literary nonprofit. So far I’ve reached 2/3 of my goal. I’m going to match all donations up to $1,000. Whatever that number is tomorrow morning I’m going to match. I really hope it’s $1,000. What’s in it for you? I’m offering a specially designed hand-printed t-shirt to anyone who donates $40 or more and helps me reach my goal. This is a one-time deal. I’m not going to make any more of these shirts. It’s corny to say “last chance.” I got a flat tire in Last Chance Pass in Death Valley and I’m still here. But this really is your last chance. That’s not a threat. I’m just saying.

Re-blog por favor.

A Not-So-Great Day at Sea

Books

image

I reviewed Geoff Dyer’s Another Great Day at Sea for the Los Angeles Times: 

Dyer is an odd choice for the job. He’s written more than a dozen books, but there’s little in his wide-ranging works of novelistic music criticism, meta analyses of film and literature, and novels of eroticism and wanderlust to suggest the English author is up for immersing himself in the U.S. Navy’s rich tradition of nautical nomenclature and affinity for highly specific jargon, or as Dyer puts it, an “Acronym Intensive Environment.”

Last of the Code Talkers

Books

Chester Nez passed away today. He was the last of the original 29 Navajo code talkers. I first learned about the code talkers while I was a student at Northern Arizona University and had the privilege of visiting the code talker memorial at Window Rock, capitol of the Navajo Nation with a former student Erik Bitsui. The irony here is that Nez, like most Navajo boys of his generation, was sent to a government run boarding school where he was forbidden from speaking Navajo.