My man used to ask me why our gay friends always wanted to hang out at gay bars. After all, we don’t always want to hang out at straight bars. They should live a little, mix it up, you know?
The reason was obvious to me. People want to hang out where they can be comfortable […]

I’m not sure who “they” are, but they say that with good writing, the writer disappears, so you never think about technique; you just get swept away in the story. I really enjoyed Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, but I was a little distracted for the first few chapters, because everything was happening in the present […]

Somehow I’ve found myself back in New York with Ann Beattie (beet’ee), and it’s getting colder out. Ah, the Chilly Scenes of Winter.
We’ve been all over the country, from New York and Connecticut to Baltimore, to Georgia and Florida, to New Orleans, Texas, Missouri, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, California, Idaho, Iowa and back to New […]

As I’m racing around the continental United States, making my way back east, I’ve found myself at an Interstate rest stop, somewhere in the Midwest. Amy, a fellow member of the Absolute Write online community has challenged me to divulge five things about myself that few people know.
Anyone who’s read a single entry here knows […]

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley takes place in rural Iowa, but it has the depravity of a story that might take place much further south. Though Smiley doesn’t really compare to writers like Tennessee Williams or William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor, she can be praised for her honest portrayal of alcholism, incest, abuse and […]

From California, the next stop is Idaho. I admit I’ve never read a book that took place in Idaho. And it’s not that Idaho is right next door to California, because, well, it’s not. But the perception of Idaho is that it’s on the opposite side of the same coin as California. If California goes […]

Okay, so some people might think that visiting California is like stepping into an alternate universe anyway, but in The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick shows what California and the (former) United States of America might be like if history had taken a different turn back in World War II.
In his alternate […]

I love this word. I just want to say it again and again - echolalia, echolalia, echolalia. Okay, so today’s book was all about glossolalia, but echolalia is a much cooler word. Say it out loud. It’s fun.
Anyway, when I tried to come up with books I’d read that took place in California, I found […]

I can’t explain it. I just think Steve Martin is friggin’ brilliant. Yes, he’s a great comic actor, but it’s the writer Steve that I truly love. And when I think of Los Angeles, I think of him.
He’s written some outstanding screenplays — The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains and Roxanne are some […]

Most of what I know about Los Angeles came out of the movies. As far as I can tell, it’s a glamorous place filled with beatifully glamorous and dramatic people - stars and artists and money men. The Go-Go’s sang about their town, “Bet you’d live here if you could and be one of us.”
White […]