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One critic said my stories are like a journey “through hope and despair with a moment of genuine joy at the end.” I think “genuine” is the operative word, and as a writer I have to earn that. As a reader, so do you. In my stories, faith is a terrible gift, love is tough but fragile, and forgiveness a perpetual work-in-progress. Ambiguity looks both ways before crossing the street but still gets hit by a bus, but it’s all good because redemption, in some form or another, is waiting just around the corner.
But that, too, must be earned: trust. At the end you may emerge a bit startled and shaken but hopefully a little wiser than before. And smiling. Because I’m a comic at heart, and a romantic but a realist too.
I like to tackle big themes--suffering and insight, death and consolation, despair and hope, obsession and restraint—in ordinary and mundane settings, but I will also whisk you away to exotic or marginalized lands. Landscape always plays a starring role in my stories, whether it’s the desolate, barren beauty of the Navajo Reservation or the lush suburbs of southern California.
I try to find beauty in every place and every person, but ordinariness often betrays them. They stumble and bumble and, when you least expect it, they reach up and catch a falling star. I often write about solitary people, profound loners in a crowd, not as stock oddballs but those who wish to fit in but can’t or those who have imposed a self-exile: unsung heroes in hiding.
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