Star-Crossed

EXCERPT  |  Rob and I were as different as night and day. He was East Coast traditional, I was West Coast, not-quite conquered territory, looking another direction. I was fond of reminding him that 100 years ago, my side of the country didn’t belong to his, and was...

Self-Help

Winner of the Renwick-Sumerwell Fiction Price, The Crescent Review, 1997 EXCERPT  |  During the sermon, I try to decide what it is about Mom that Dad doesn’t like anymore. Mom is still beautiful in her floral sundresses and white sandals, I think. But she doesn’t seem...

Improvising

EXCERPT  |  It was hard not to see my sister’s fling with the singer at the martini bar as some sort of family experiment to see if she could summon someone to intervene. She was like that. Last year she had threatened to join the Marines. The year before, she dropped...

Blood

Winner of the 2010 Short Fiction contest in ABQ the Mag EXCERPT  |  You watch the fire chew through the ashes at the tip of the cigarette. They watch you watch the ashes. Vermilion-hot ashes, perforated, like your brain, riddled with holes of memories they stole from...

Detox

Published in Ellipsis, 2004 Published in Wilde Frauen An anthology of women writers featuring Isabel Allende, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood and Pam Houston and a foreword by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, 1996 EXCERPT  |  Chris and I have been going out for a month....
Jolly Good

Jolly Good

JOLLY GOOD At Minerva Graphics, which is just off Old Bond Street in Bath, England, I bought a sketch journal and a folio. An elderly couple were watching me as I fumbled with my umbrella and my backpack, fishing for pounds in the pocket. When I spoke, they nodded in...
Henge of Stone

Henge of Stone

STONES THAT SPEAK The stones speak to me. I knew they would. It’s in my line. I’m Celtic, and I was born on Winter Solstice, the day they mark at Stonehenge as the sun sets, when the winter sun sets in the sky, the shortest day of the year. On this day, our group from...