Having a child was the most beautiful experience of my life. But it seems they are never satisfied. For example, Arnulfo. When they found that I was going to have a child, right away they assumed that I would marry the father. “Linda,” they said. “Have you thought how Arnulfo and you can live? What […]
God Wanted Arnulfo to Marry Me Read More »
I’ve spent the last fifty years or so writing songs, performing them, trying to sell them, all without the slightest financial reward. Well, I overstate – back in the early 1980s, I played many paying gigs with a small group, Toy Boat. In 1982, Toy Boat had had two extended gigs at a Westside club
How to Avoid Success Read More »
In 1986, the year John D. MacDonald died, Carl Hiaasen published his first solo novel. The following year, Tim Dorsey took a reporting job with the Tampa Tribune, from which he retired in 1999 to write fiction full time. No one writing about modern-day Florida can avoid writing about crime, and no one writing about Florida
Tim Dorsey: Vengeance Is Mine, Saith Serge Storms Read More »
His eyes are jelly holes The sheep his wool is fire Toppling up the slope Toward the wire. No Says the sheep’s master. He can only follow her. The sheep goes faster. In the wire they all rolled, Held, holding, all defiled. The poor girl, she foaled. My cradle. Oh my child.
Stray Fire – Vietnam, 1968 Read More »
(In memory of Michael Levine) His red beard copper in the sun, he battled patiently in the black field against the sumac, sassafras, Canadian thistle. For years his forehead burned as he looked toward the oaks’ cool shade and gouged sweat from his eyes and bent again to address his enemies. The fine needles of
My grandmother died during my seventh year, my first encounter with Death. I don’t remember how my mother explained it to me, but what I took in was that “death” meant that someone no longer existed. I had never considered such a possibility, and all summer long, it obsessed me. Each night after bedtime, I’d