‘Sword and Scale’ podcast, upcoming appearance
For as long as we’ve had the written word, writers have been interested in crime. For me, as a younger journalist, it was all about meaning. Beyond the depravity, what could we glean about ourselves or our world from looking at crime? That was the question that drew me toward the case of Kendall Francois ...
Interview with Nate Bowling on “Nerd Farmer”
Nate Bowling, named Washington State’s Teacher of the Year in 2015, is an unusually outspoken educator, unflinching in his assessments and particularly adept at connecting local storylines to larger themes. We sat down recently for a wide-ranging conversation about education, politics and human motivation of all kinds. Here’s our interview, where the reporter is the one ...
We have lift off!
After a long, bumpy road, I must give a huge shout-out to all who showed up Friday night at Elliott Bay Book Company to launch THE SPIDER AND THE FLY. What an incredible evening! I am so grateful to Seattle’s writers. _______ For those interested, I have several upcoming appearances: Tuesday, Jan. 31, 7 p.m. ...
“The Spider and the Fly” went into a bar …
It’s a whole different thing when readers hear you read your work. A writer reading aloud is giving a performance, offering an audience something different from what they’d get reading to themselves. Thanks to Vito’s in Seattle for providing the atmospherics for Lit Crawl’s “Crime and Punishment” reading. Thanks also to memoirist Suzanne Morrison, author of “Yoga Bitch” ...
Making My Peace with the Past
News that serial killer Kendall Francois, 43, died last week in a maximum security New York prison left me floundering in a strange wash of emotions, an unlikely mixture of sadness and relief. A lonely time in my past ended with his death, a memory that has haunted me ever since I ended our correspondence ...
Trust Granted
Great news, everyone! I am pleased to announce that Artist Trust, a revered non-profit organization supporting creative work in Washington State, has honored my writing with a 2013 GAP Award (Grant for Artist Project). This grant supports completion of The Spider and The Fly, my manuscript about the years I spent in conversation with serial ...
Missing the Point. Again.
Many thanks to WSU Tri-Cities for inviting me to speak about “The New Front Page,” my talk on the changes in journalism and what they mean for all of us. My Oct. 17 discussion, sponsored by Humanities Washington, generated some sparks when Gregg McConnell, publisher of the local Tri-City Herald, stood up to castigate me ...
News Shmews: A journalist confronts reader apathy
I’ve spent the past twenty-five years interviewing teenage gangsters, pimps and victims of child abuse. At New York’s Attica prison, I sat elbow-to-thigh with a serial killer who enjoyed sharing his pornographic fantasies. Yet it was a 20-year-old college student from Eastern Washington who truly chilled me. She was a short, chubby girl, politely explaining ...