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LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back
Separate but equal is not equal, nor is it just. It is past time to acknowledge that gender is variable, that my lived experience is no more or less valid than yours, that each and every person deserves the space and safety to live her/his/their authentic self. I am a cis straight woman married to…
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Best Laid Plans (the more things change. . .)
Long ago, when I was a department head, I kept my sanity (more or less) by writing satire in the early mornings, as a way to inoculate myself against the day ahead. One result was BEST LAID PLANS, which some of you may have read when The Fantasist published it a few years ago. I had thoughts…
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Estuary (writing while walking)
Knitted into the plot of the novel manuscript I’m working on (which I won’t summarize here) is an estuary restoration project. I’ve drawn on a couple of preserves I’ve visited in recent years to think about what the imagined place might look like, what it is trying to accomplish. Recently, I hiked through the South Slough…
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‘Tis the season
Back to school means back to satire. So much to choose from—my own contribution is BEST LAID PLANS. Can I admit this is the piece of “academic writing” closest to my heart? Surely the one that’s been most fun to share. Some of the research behind the story. . . less fun. Hijinks and lowjinks…
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The Common #21
I’m so pleased to have a story, “Misdirection,” in this issue of The Common. Now available for pre-order, digital editions available from April 26.
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Duct Tape Obelisk 2
I wrote about the duct-taped obelisk, subsequently restored, last fall (Duct Tape Obelisk). It’s real—or it was—and it gave me a springboard or an excuse or a pretext to think about birthdays in cemeteries and restoration and rebellion and loss. Some of which made it into a short story, “Give that Girl a Wilson Cigar!”,…
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Duct Tape Obelisk
There’s a cemetery I sometimes walk through on my way to work, or on my way home. They’re mostly historic graves, though I think interments still take place from time to time. It’s quiet, with tall trees, a little poison oak, a caretaker’s trailer, and cigarette butts ankle deep at the entrance closest to campus,…