“If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” -- Toni Morrison They haunt me, the dozens of novels and novellas and stories I’ve…
Posts published in “Features”
Mendocino Redwood Company, the largest timberland holder in Mendocino County, has applied for permits that would run for eighty years. History stands in opposition to this corporate pipedream. Mendocino Redwood Company has submitted thousands of…
"Little sister,” he’d say to me, “put BOTH a them teeties back in your blouse and move on… you don’t need to be nursin’ no man… not when you’ve got your mystery baby to take…
From October 6, 1866, until February of 1869, the nation's newspapers carried headlines covering the saga of the world's first train robbers and the apparent lawlessness of Jackson County, Indiana. The Reno gang's fame was…
I am, and have always been since I first became acquainted with his body of work, a huge fan of comedian/actor/writer/producer/director Albert Brooks. I find myself thoroughly entranced with his uncanny ability to relate the…
THE NEW BOOK by Stephen Sparks and Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman, mentioned in last week's AVA and reviewed this week — “Out there in the Woods,” an account of the double-murder and ensuing manhunt…
A THOUSAND LIVES — The Untold Story of JonesTown by Julia Scheeres isn't what the mighty AVA would recommend as must reading, but for those of us who remain fascinated by a mass murder that…
GOOD TO READ that Linda Williams of the Willits News has re-visited the unsolved murder of Les Crane, a Laytonville marijuana crusader shot to death in his home by a group of four invaders, maybe…
THE AVA'S ACE Courthouse reporter, Bruce McEwen, is looking for a Ukiah-area berth from which to resume reporting on crime and punishment in Mendocino County. He can pay a modest rent (very modest) and, being…