Recent or Upcoming Events:
My chapbook Make Me Your Love Song has been accepted for publication by Kelsay Books. It will be out in late June, I hope. I’m in the process of choosing a cover.
My Creative Non-Fiction piece, “My Grandmother’s Ghost visits on her birthay,” was published in the latest editon of Ponder Review. It was subsequently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. This piece is very personal and was difficult to write. I loved my Grandma but …
Recent and Upcoming publications: “How to Swallow a Conspiracy Theory and “Atmospheric River will soon appear in Frontier Magazine. Three of my poems were included in “Double Take” an anthology of Ekphrastic poetry and art. Other poems appeared in the following publications late last summer or early fall: Haight-Ashbury Journal, Peregrine Journal, Naugatuck Review, and Bethlehem Roundtable. I will soon make some of those poems accessible on this website.
July 17, 2020: Sales of Insomniacs, Inc. are going well. Amazon reviews are a treasured gift, if you are so inclined.
Now available on Amazon.com and from your local bookstore. For Book Club Discussion questions, click on tab above.
January 24, 2022: My new mystery novel, Insomniacs, Inc., published by Russian Hill Press, will soon be available on Amazon and in various bookstores and libraries. Here’s a concise summary:
Neighborhood busybodies Marilyn and Jack are just settling into retirement in a small California town when their peaceful routine is disrupted: an irksome young neighbor, a heavy metal musician, dies under mysterious circumstances. The incident brings together a small, unlikely group of amateur neighborhood investigators anxious to prove their own innocence, and more than just the truth about the musician’s death is revealed. Insomniacs, Inc. is a thrilling and cheeky novel of the zeitgeist, where division over political and racial identities threatens even the most tranquil suburban harmony. Can a small group of committed neighbors rise above their differences and work together to assist the inexperienced young detective in solving the murder? Or will their prejudices and suspicions derail the investigation?
Flash fiction online at Streetlight Magazine, 3-11-2022:
January, 2021:FINALLY, I finished my mystery novel, Insomniacs, Inc. , which helped to keep me occupied in a good way during the crazy year that 2020 turned out to be. Now comes the hard part: searching for a publisher or an agent. I’m looking forward to writing some new poetry, if my muse would be so kind as to return with some worthwhile hints. Meanwhile, a poem I wrote last year, “An Empty Tip Jar,” has been published by Synkrinocity, and another, “Hell’s Bells” was accepted by Haight Ashbury Journal for publication in the near future.
Another achievement was completion of a second anthology by my writing group, Wild Vine Writers. All proceeds from Two Truths and a Lie are donated to the Connie Clark Reentry Fund for new students at Chabot College. To purchase a fine read and contribute to a worthy cause, just click here: https://jockoriverwriters.org/wild-vine-writers
As children, my sisters and I whiled away many hours with paper dolls cut from mail order catalogs. I’m honored to have “Paper Dolls of 1962,” a nostalgic prose poem, included in the first edition of Abandoned Library Press, Past and Present. https://abandonedlibrarypress.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/alp-issue-1-1.pdf
My prose poem “Of Dreamcatchers and Monster Spray” has been published online at Fudoki Magazine. https://fudokimagazine.com/of-dreamcatchers-and-monster-spray/ . This one is based on my childrens’ fear of the dark and the different coping mechanisms used by all of us.
On August 31, 2019, I had fun reading from my new poetry chapbook, Tick-Tock (now available from Amazon.com) at the Octopus Literary Salon in Oakland with three other Finishing Line Press poets: Laura Schulkind, Cynthia Patton, and Jessica Barksdale. Next up: a reading with the same group of poets in Livermore. Venue to be announced soon.
Two of my poems, “Oops, You Missed It” and “Carnival Days” appear in the current edition of Haight Ashbury Journal (September, 2019). I’ll be reading along with other contributors at the San Francisco Library on Page St. this Tuesday, October 8 and again on December 1 at noon.
