Herb Caen: The Sackamenna Kid
I'm thrilled to join Archivist James Scott 12-1:30 December 3 for a discussion about the Sackamenna Kid: Herb Caen. We’ll [...]
Fiction, life, history, politics
I retired from teaching in 2021. One thing I really miss is talking about CONNECTIONS between fiction and life and [...]
Who gets to tell the story
I first learned about Betty Reid Soskin (above, in a photograph by Frederic Aranda for National Geographic Traveler) while visiting the [...]
Mustn’t let adults know
I used to run The Banned Book Club for teenagers. We only read books that had been banned by libraries [...]
Cantankerous and fussy
I wrote Copy Boy, my first of the Jane Benjamin novels, in ten years, dipping in and out of the [...]
The passing of Joan Didion
Sacramento-born author, Joan Didion, who passed away over the holidays, had an outsized effect on me, especially this idea from [...]
Never off the rack
I just subscribed to the Renee Patrick Books newsletter, drawn in by their Golden Age of Hollywood series, featuring legendary [...]
Caitlin Rother and Origin Stories
On LitHub's Authors in the Tent, Ona Russell recently interviewed true crime writer, Caitlin Rother. Rother's written 14 books. As a [...]
Shopping for 1939 fashion
Writing historical fiction means a lot of learning. Some of it gives me a headache. But other research topics are [...]
Recreating 1939’s RMS Queen Mary
Though half of Tomboy takes place on RMS Queen Mary in 1939, I was never able to visit her in [...]