We were early birds, bad girls, schemers, druggies. Aria and I only attended high school as freshmen; after that, we were independent study kids. While Analy High’s class of ’96 amassed memories to chronicle in yearbooks, we skulked around our small California town, smoking weed and later meth, hitchhiking, getting fucked up with grown men. We skipped prom, school pictures, and graduation.
Check out the new issue of River Teeth.
I’m over the moon today. My essay “Snakebit,” originally published in The Threepenny Review, has been chosen for The Best American Essays 2017, edited by one of my personal heroes, Leslie Jamison. Another of my essays, “Chasing Arrows,” published in New England Review, also received an honorable mention. Holy guacamole, I’m double-dipping in BAE!
This is proof positive that a relatively new writer can still gain entrance to the walled city without calling in favors to the king. The anthology is due for general release next month and will be available at independent bookstores nationwide.
What an honor, what a thrill.
We head west out of Havana in the early afternoon, my husband, Kevin, behind the wheel of our circa 1990 rented Geely sedan. The air feels like the inside of a mouth, and even though third gear sounds like an opera singer warming up and the stereo doesn’t work, we’re grateful for air conditioning. The highway winds through coastal Artemisa, a tranquil, verdant province of farmland and gleaming seascapes. Exquisite scenery. But I have an ulterior motive for returning.
I’ve come to settle an old debt.
Read the full essay in Nowhere Magazine.
[Lead Image: Aristos Iatrou]
I’m delighted to see my essay, “In Any Light, By Any Name,” originally published in Tin House, included in this gorgeous anthology of California prose released by Outpost19. Lisa Locascio edited this fine collection and I couldn’t be more pleased to be part of it. Available at independent bookstores throughout California and, of course, online. http://outpost19.com/California/
He came from Florida, though I forgot which part as soon as he said it. Definitely not Miami. His skin was a fierce pink and he wore a turquoise Marlins baseball cap on backwards, a loose-fitting tank top, and board shorts. Pudgy, thirty-something, and reeking of booze. Something about the guy I liked. He had a big drunk laugh and seemed unstable in a refreshing way.
– See more at: http://www.nereview.com/vol-37-no-1-2016/chasing-arrows/#sthash.8M6DZQrM.dpuf
Birthday SuitDon’t believe I was ever happy fiddling with dolls. Or skipping around the yard, tra-la. Adults invented the myth of the carefree childhood. As an only kid, I remember realizing—I must have been five or six—that no one would ever see who I truly was inside. Heartbreaking. Also, I remember hungering. Being so small and powerless, not even knowing what it was I wanted, just wanting, wanting.
Then I heard him.
Mom cranked it up while she painted. Her studio occupied the brightest room in the house. There were gobs of oil paint hardening on the braided rug, rags reeking of turpentine. Music so loud the windows shook. Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain. He moaned and screeched from Mom’s boombox, falsetto riding high over that funk. His hunger bottomless like mine.
Does six years old sound too young to feel lust? I tell you it’s not.
Read the full piece in Barrelhouse Magazine.
Download the free e-book anthology, Dig If You Will The Picture: Remembering Prince.
I’m thrilled to have a new essay in this gorgeous issue of New England Review. NER is a lovely and well-respected print journal, available at what was referred to in olden times as a “bookstore.”
