A recap of BEA 2014 and a look back at a very dark time.

In 2008, I was working on an Indian reservation 30 miles east of downtown San Diego at a casino somewhere between the desert and the mountains. Along with my outsider angst, I was nurturing an addiction to alcohol that I would exacerbate by abusing other substances. Driving out to the rez every day to create copy like “ALL-YOU-CAN EAT CRAB LEGS $11.99,” I still had dreams of being a real writer, but drinking airplane bottles of vodka on my lunch break in the casino parking lot on the rez, I could feel those dreams slipping away.