When the Nazis arrested Jewish families and deported them to Camps or their death, the places where the Jews had lived were redistributed to good Germans. Germans with good connections got the fanciest ones, poorer Germans got other ones proportionately.…

i think shame is the most glorious purple oceans and oceans of orchids upon fuschias a million lilacs a thousand peonies lots and lots of grape lollipops so many blues and reds that's the combo of magic that's the combo…

You know the colors. Paint hues that are barely colors at all, like the pale green of a slightly nauseated face, or the pale yellow of sickly urine, or the pale grey of....well....grey! Walls painted so anemically, it's as if…

There was a man named Gil Dennis who spoke at writing conferences. I think I heard him for the first time at Tin House twenty or so years ago, and then again at Squaw Valley maybe ten or twelve years…

Amerlia's best friend always had the best housing karma. In Santa Barbara she lived in a cottage on the cliffs overlooking the sea. No other student lived within miles of her. In Berkeley before that she had a two story…

The color of shame is transparent. Like saliva, like pee in the pristine porcelain bowl when six glasses of water are what I happily manage to swallow. Like water in the goldfish tank in Biology class, shame is a total…

A few years ago I became obsessed with Hansel and Gretel, the story. I couldn’t shake it. I did my usual paltry job of researching it, Grimm, Bettelheim, Opera, versions, but I couldn’t get close to it. I did finally…