I was raised almost mutely by a father who, I am sure, loved me, but with a kind of muscle love that could not be…
It’s dark outside, possibly raining. Bette Davis is alone in a big house, sitting in a large, wing-back chair so she can’t see or hear…
For the past month I have been away from home. First in Vancouver, teaching a creative nonfiction summer course at the University of British Columbia,…
There are few cats in San Miguel de Allende. In the three years we’ve been going to Mexico for the winter, we’ve seen maybe half…
A few nights ago, we watched the first episode of Homeland (we binge watch, which, according to a recent Netflix poll, is how 76 percent of viewers…
I was talking to the great Trinidad-Tobago novelist Earl Lovelace a few weeks ago (if I can’t drop a name or two in my own…
My essay, “So Much Jazz,” about the inspiration for the musical elements in Emancipation Day, has been posted on Retreat by Random House. To read it,…
It’s not always possible to pinpoint the exact moment when a book is conceived, when the germ of a discovery meets the seed of an…
I have written fourteen books of nonfiction, and now I have written a novel, and recently I was asked to compare the two experiences. What…
“But dead people persist in the minds of the living.” –Margaret Atwood, Negotiating with the Dead. My current work-in-progress rebelled after about ten drafts. It…