I thought I saw you in your Dodge Ram Truck driving by my house. You waved and kept on going. It was not you, you died. I thought I saw you riding your e-bike past my house, you were bitching…

"I don't know how you typically do these things," Caitlyn said. "Do you pay the bill and we both Venmo you, or ...?" She and Franca had just spent the better part of an hour ignoring me over sushi before…

Detective Myriah Foukes woke up early that morning, before dawn, and felt the urge to revisit the Patel house though the case had been closed. She felt that tickle of doom inside--the same kind that preceded catching a cold or…

Words. Words, words, words! Hamlet exclaims. He is annoyed with not only the superficiality of what people say, but the betrayal of those words as well. His comment is ironic if one considers the play he says the words in,…

Ana had been trekking the past several hours in the dawn light, though trudging might be a better descriptor. She picked up her pack and slammed it on the ground next to her, where she heard her camp kit rattling…

Whenever I feel down and out, I go for a walk in the woods, and I feel much better. Every day is an adventure. That land is my happy place. I believe the land can save us. In 1938 when…

I remember one morning when I tried to describe the Santa Ana winds to my lover who had never even been to America, let alone California, let alone Southern California. We were in Aix-en-Provence, in Momo’s bare bedroom with its…

Surprisingly, as far as the tales I knew by heart are concerned, the stories i learned in my Saturday morning religious school class at my Jewish Temple in Atlanta , Georgia come to mind....that surprised me as much as anything…

Well, as lush and as unendingly generous as the California land has been to the countless people who have chosen to make it their home through the centuries, inevitably, a price is paid, and God or whoever is in charge…

I

At 7:02 am on January 10th, 2025, after a crackling vortex of embers swirled around the Altadena McDonald's and a pony waited quietly among the three hundred confused and injured animals at a Pasadena shelter, after books and paintings and…

“The land can save us.” Who on earth wrote that line? Pearl Buck in 1930? I never read Pearl Buck, know her name and her book “The Good Earth” only from quiz shows. I’m guessing it was about the good…