De Kat, the Cat: the windmill that produces colors
Wednesday was going to be a sunny day, the weather projections forecasted, and so we planned our trip to Zaanse Schwanz [sic]for that day. There, the brochure promised, we would find a village which had been an industrial center with … Read More
The Turkish Hamman
We were greeted by a beautiful friendly woman in a flowered headscarf and taken through our options. She and I each spoke a little French and so we communicated this way. We chose a program from the middle of the … Read More
Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement
This was a difficult day I am not going to write about. Into every holiday, a little rain must fall: a failed fast, a silenced bell tower, a closed Portuguese synagogue, time in pharmacies, aching feet…..
Museum Canal Boat
Today we took a canal boat to three museums, a lovely way to view the city. A ticket allows you to get on and off at any of a dozen stops on the loop. The tour of Ann Frank House … Read More
Lost in Amsterdam
My friend Judy from Findley Lake, our family’s home, arrived around noon and wanted to head right out. Directional coordinates are difficult in a semicircular city where street names change often. And so we promptly got lost which– as every … Read More
Nieuwemarkt, Amsterdam
Todd and Barbara’s canal house has a footprint of approximately 16 feet square. Land is at a premium in Amsterdam; houses were taxed on their footprint so thrifty Amsterdammers built up. My room is under the roof beams, up a … Read More
Frankfurt to Amsterdam
I begin to suspect the train has crossed the border from Germany to Holland by the resemblance to landscapes and homes found in Flemish art: the pitch of the roofs; dirt road through an esplanade of poplars. I knew that … Read More
The Metises: designer people engineered by the continent
In fact, I STILL didn’t know what my novel was about, after completing it in Taos NM at the end of 2005, dazzled by the compelling eroticism. The journal I kept named the tribes I passed through, Hopi, Navajo, and … Read More
Am I embarrassed by the sex scenes I have written?
A good friend and writer who will remain unnamed commented on the steamy sex in Burning Silk. “I have been reading your book. I am a bit embarrassed by the sex scenes between the two women. Does anyone else feel … Read More
David v. Goliath, lit small press v. publishing behemoth: will it work?
Hello editors, I am an Erie PA native, living parttime in Berkeley CA and parttime in Western NYS–Chautauqua County and in the Penn-York Valley south oMy first novel in the Textile Trilogy was just released a month ago from sitio … Read More
Matrilineality and honoring our foremothers
Today I had an extraordinary encounter with a foremother, an ancestor who stood firm in her vision during the years when deals were being struck and friendships betrayed. I was first attracted by Sally Roesch Wagner’s book Sisters in Spirit … Read More
Interview with Jason Wright publisher of Oddball Magazine
I’m attending a week’s certification course in Literary Small Press Publishing at Emerson College in Boston MA with a dozen other small press entrepreneurs. Yesterday, Jason Wright of Oddball Magazine interviewed me about my recently released book Burning Silk, doing … Read More