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Posts tagged as “essays”

My Big Trip

In 1976, when I was twenty-six and working as a landscaper in southern Oregon, my big dream was go to New York and meet my literary agent Dorothy Pittman for the first time, and also say hello to the magazine editors at Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, and Gallery who had bought my short stories; and to rub shoulders, I hoped, with others of my kind.

Four Hundred Thousand

Do you earn $400,000 of taxable income in a year? Have you ever earned $400,000 in a single year? Do you have friends who earn or have ever earned $400,000 in a year? I thought not; nor do I have friends earning that kind of money, though I do know some certifiably wealthy people.

A Kraken Awakes

Ed note: This book wasn't born in Boonville but it was birthed here on the Miner-Anderson Ranch east of town. * * * The big book of 2013, just published by Knopf, is “American Tropic”…

Unpublished Work

“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…

River Views

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…

Son Of The Tamale Queen

"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…

The Reno Gang

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…

Nine Days

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…

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