Meet Keira. She’s learning the cost of a dream.
Keira is sixteen and she wants to be a dancer. A ballet dancer. But that takes training and training costs money, which her mother doesn’t have. They can’t afford to…
Meet Alan. He’s about to discover the unexpected.
Alan is a young man from an upper-middle-class family, a reluctant student at New York University, and a lost soul. Because he doesn’t know who he is anymore. All his…
Saying what they don’t want to know
Some things are hard to talk about—especially with a parent. For some teenagers, talking is beyond hard. It’s dangerous. Because the subject is forbidden. There’s too much at stake. In…
Meet Dearnon. His world is about to change.
Marty Dearnon owns a convenience store of sorts, about three hours from Laramie, Wyoming. When he bought it six years ago, it was his pride and joy. “He’d polished the…
The Cost of Words Unspoken
“The cost of words unspoken” can bankrupt us, trap us in unending regret. For Dearnon, the shop owner in “The Broken Place,” the tentacles of regret have spread to every…
Meet Maria. Her life was filled with hope, until it wasn’t.
In “Beloved,” the opening story in That Very Place, a woman is waiting for her pants to dry in a Laundromat in Queens. Everyone else is waiting for the arrival of the…
Another inspiring conference at VCFA
I just got back from the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Conference. I was delighted to have the chance to work with Sonja Livingston and the gifted writers in her creative…
More Praise for That Very Place
We all strive to be honest with ourselves. But how many of us would be ready to admit we’ve been “complicit in the traumas inflicted on the people we love”?…
Meet Eileen, from That Very Place. She’s got a problem.
Eileen’s imagination rarely fails her. She’s darn good at making stuff up, especially when it comes to hiding what she’s most ashamed of: a dad who didn’t care about her.…
Meet Eileen, from That Very Place. She’s got a problem.
When I was growing up, self-effacement was considered saintly—at least in my family. Anyone with the temerity to brag about himself was swiftly brought low. So each time I’ve been lucky enough…
Meet Peggy, from THAT VERY PLACE
Peggy, a New Yorker from an Irish-Catholic family, is living in a nursing home and struggling with dementia. Once a key decision-maker at a top Wall Street firm, she considers…
THAT VERY PLACE is almost here!
The people you’ll meet in my new story collection, That Very Place, find themselves in places where they’d rather not be. Each is bound by a connection they cannot break:…