Con men and snake oil salesmen have always been with us, both in literature and, sadly, in life as well: The Bible has plenty of terrible duplicitous jerks who fancied themselves the answer to all man’s ills and who never…

It wasn’t a matter of doing more. Aria was exhausted. Trying to think, she felt her brain come up short. Like some necessary link had been severed. The best analogy she could think of was when she’d torn a ligament,…

Kevin fingered the stalk. It felt like a dried up piece of asparagus. There was a nub at the base where it came out of the woody trunk. It wasn't exactly on the shoot. "Do you count that?" Kevin asked,…

Naming sort of brings things into existence. “Things:” Relationships. Governments. Pain. Embroyos. They’re inchoate, not defined or perhaps not even recognized, not wanted – or perhaps wanted too badly, in which case there’s the fear naming it because it—the something…

There was a burst of acceleration as the small ship leapt into the non space of a wormhole. An eerie glow flickered outside the view ports, side effects of the light of distant stars being confused as to how to…

Agatha remembered the swirling full white dresses and the smell of roses floating simply in the air. The night was chilly and yet she had danced so much that she had taken off her fox stole, leaving it carelessly on…

It was far away from Iowa City, but San Francisco in the early1970s was a great town for poetry and at my very young age I thought nothing on earth was sexier than a poet of a certain kind. They…

The land outside the sanctuary was barren. Nothing but rock and sand. Nothing grew in the harsh sun, but in the crevices of rocks in the canyon, there was a thriving world of insects and mold. Her parents were scientists…

Out here on the “boards," the Greenbrae Boardwalk, in a bird refuge, it’s dark enough to see what’s going on in the sky. On these clear winter nights, I pause during the one-third of a mile walk between my car…

(Note: This follows what I sent yesterday.) I pressed Casserly’s number. He answered on the first ring. “Hayduke isn’t coming.” “I know.” “He called you?” “It’s protocol. Tomorrow or the next day isn’t an option?” “Not unless I also want…

I am a little down this morning following last week's new political low which has caused me to reflect a moment. Among my peers, successful men and women, who worked in a variety of industries, medicine, tech, entertainment, finance, but…

Long-running Broadway shows are sometimes called to task, if the performing company gets too lackadaisical , too lazy, too bored, with night after night performances and the show suffers. The original sparkle of the show, in the early stages, sometimes…