writer of all sorts of things
The little town of Riverside, New Jersey enacted stringent anti-immigration laws about a year ago, deciding to prosecute anybody who employed or rented to illegal immigrants. The town’s economy tanked and its downtown–thriving a year ago–looks like a ghost town now. The residents had no idea the economic repercussions of enacting the law and are now rethinking it. Continue reading ‘Rethinking Illegal Immigration Laws’
Warren Jeffs, the leader of the polygamous break-away sects of Mormonism in Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz, has been convicted of being an accomplice to rape. 
He married a 14-year-old girl against her will to a cousin she says she did not like. The courts have argued that he knew in a case like this that non-consensual sex would occur.
Of course, his lawyers plan to appeal. Unfortunately, they may have a case for appeal since the New York Times reports that the jury was deadlocked until an alternate jury was substituted for one of the original panel members for “reasons the court did not explain.”
If you want to watch a documentary about Colorado City and Hildale, the twin communities where members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints live, click here. You may have to become a member of Az news sources in order to watch the documentary. The documentary suffers from a one-sided perspective–the only people willing to talk to the reporters are disaffected members, those who have left or been barred from the community, and those like Flora Jessup who conduct an underground railroad where they help women escape. From this perspective, the only possible interpretation of the religion and its leaders and practices is characterized through such labels as “America’s Taliban” and “welfare state.” I don’t have a problem with those characterizations but I wish (and I’m sure the reporters who wrote the report wished) they could have had an “insider’s” perspective from someone who is still an active member of the church/community.
A couple of months ago, I started shredding my rough drafts before I took them out to be recycled. I’m not sure why, exactly, except for this vague uneasy totally paranoid feeling that maybe somebody might steal my latest, almost completed novel Killing Isaac and somehow manage to get it published before I do, with their name attached instead of mine.
 Absurd, right?
Well, about four weeks ago, a man around the neighborhood who is a recovering addict  asked me for a couple of dollars so he could take the bus to a friend’s house.Â
He was telling me how he had just gotten released from jail (a D.U.I.) but he was getting his life straight when he suddenly said, ”You’re a writer! I didn’t know that!” Continue reading ‘What You Leave in the Trash Can’
While I find this student’s editorial abhorrent, I do stand behind his right to write it and, if published, not be bullied or attacked, as he claims he was. Further, I agree with the court’s ruling that “upheld a high school journalist’s right to write an anti-immigrant editorial and affirmed California’s strong legal protections for students’ free speech.” The school chose to publish his editorial in the first place and then it revoked the remaining issues of the paper when it received complaints. Continue reading ‘Free Speech/Anti-Immigration: Mackenzie Malone is in the news’
Because I’m trying to finish edits on Killing Isaac and I’m also trying to finish another novel, currently titled (for lack of imagination) NomKhosi (which is a Zulu name for a girl and it means “With Great Celebration” or “The Greatest Par-tay in the World!!!!), I am woefully behind on some books I promised to review.
That shall change this week, I solemnly promise. Okay, the promise is not that I will review them this week but that I will make a grand effort to get to them this week. Those books are, not necessarily in order:Â a trilogy by Mike Kearby (I will probably only review the latest one), My Daughter’s Eyes and Other Stories by Annecy Baez, Closed for Repairs by Nancy Alonso, and America’s Child by Susan Sherman.
 Coming soon from a crazed, desperate writer near you…..
I had fun with this: I had to send a sheet of review blurbs out for publicity this morning, and I loved the fact that I could quote former Chief Justice Richard Barajas calling The Confessional “enthralling” and “thought-provoking.”
“When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.” –Ian McEwan
Well, booksellers, writers, and publicists–take note. Just like restaurant advertising dollars go to women, so should book advertising dollars, evidently: NPR reports that women read more than men. (Sadly for me. I like writing guy voices. A lot. In fact, my guy voices come easier than my girl voices. Maybe I’m a really a guy deep down inside. But on the plus side, women not only read women’s novels but they read novels with male protaganists, too. Science fiction is probably the big exception to this general rule.) Continue reading ‘Women Read More Than Men’
The winner in Debbie Nathan’s “Gringo” T-shirt contest. I actually like the GRINGA t-shirt best (see below or see Debbie Nathan’s blog).
