My 1940s Desk When my first novel, Railway Avenue, was published, I started giving readings at libraries and bookstores and doing radio interviews. People would ask me, "What’s your process?” I didn’t know how to answer that. Do I have a process? I guess I do, and even back then I did, but never gave it much thought. I would usually respond that I just sit down and write. It has taken me the last 13 years to realize what my process is. You may imagine that writers sit at a be

Anita and her lobster in Wells, Maine. Last year at this time, Anita, Deb, and I made it to New York after four days of driving, 2,000 miles from Santa Fe, New Mexico. That day, as we crossed the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey, the Manhattan skyline came into view as we crept along in rush-hour traffic. It was a return to our birthplace, which we left over 50+ years ago. From there, we made our way to Deb’s home in Kings Park on Long Island’s North Shore. The next d

OUR BIGGEST SNOWFALL OF THE WINTER It’s that time of the month when I sit down and write my monthly blog. I have several things on my mind, foremost, winter. I just lived through my first East Coast winter in over 50 years. I have to say the weather here is awful. It was bad when I moved away all those years ago, and it hasn’t changed much. We think this 2026 winter is over. But who knows? It seemed like the cold and the snow would never end. Anita and I lived in the Rocky Mo

Shortly after surgery. Dear friends, If you’ve been keeping up with my blogs, you know I had spinal neck surgery in early February. I’m happy to report it went well—actually, better than expected. So well, in fact, that my doctor didn’t even need to do a fusion. Turns out my vertebrae had already taken care of that on their own. (Nice to know something in my body is proactive.) She cleaned out the area around my spinal cord and added some padding—basically giving me an improv