I’m in love with Lily Asher, the troubled teenage heroine of my novel, The Shark Curtain. Lily is an iconoclast, a survivor, a seeker. She’s also at the heart of fantasies that alternately isolate and bewitch her. Ironically, art, ghosts, the love of her dysfunctional family, and the friendship of a needy annoying Jesus Christ …
I suspect that there’s almost no such thing as a book that isn’t personal to the author. I say that because I’d just been about to open this piece with something along the lines of this throwaway line: “The Honest Truth, my debut novel, is very personal to me.” Of course it is. I wrote …
Who in their right mind, in 2014, would publish a novel that touches upon the American War in Vietnam? And what sort of nutter would write, let alone try to publish, a novel that involves one of the protagonists being accused of sexual misconduct? I was raised partly by a Vietnam veteran stepdad whose anger …
Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. — Roald Dahl, The Minpins Four-year-old Kate loved Curious George. She loved his books, his shows, and his little stuffed self. She …
One of the greatest privileges I’ve had as a bookseller is serving on the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Awards Committee. The Shortlist of finalists was announced November 18. I didn’t know what to expect when I volunteered, but when the hundreds of nominated books began arriving at my house by the boxful I quickly …
The man who recently wrote to me had been a bookstore owner in Arkansas and, because of the vicissitudes of the business (“death by box store”, as he put it), he’d taken a job as a custodian for its meager pay and the critical benefits it provided. He thanked me for the dignity I had …
A few months after I started writing Crooked River, I signed up for a Backyard Beekeeping class through Portland Community College. The first part of the class was a lecture on the basics of beekeeping and the equipment needed to start a new hive. Later the class met at the instructor/beekeeper’s house a few minutes’ …
As the dawn brightens outside my sod igloo, I see the ground is white. The trees are waving madly in a snowstorm. For a second, I feel my heart beat faster—yesterday was warm and sunny, and this morning I have to set off for Tacoma and the PNBA book conference. It won’t be pleasant in a blizzard. …
If I could give every teenager in the world one thing, it would be J-Hall. When I was in high school, J-Hall was my haven. The nerds ruled J-Hall. It housed the band, choir, and theater departments, and at the end of the hall, far from the clamor of the crowded cafeteria, sat a magical …
I grew up in the mountains of central Idaho, near the Frank Church Wilderness of No Return. My parents could probably be classified as being part of the back to the land movement. Soon after my older sister was born, they moved from a suburb of Denver to Idaho and bought a piece of land …
