It’s 8 a.m. but still quite chilly after a cold night at this elevation. Nine thousand two hundred twenty-five feet in the air, close to clouds and alpenglow, last night’s sunset was circular—not just aglow in the west but colors swirling around and about 12,618-foot laccolithic Lone Cone to the north, dropping down in the … Continue reading →

1. On his big bay gelding Ken rides up to me, his eyes shades of green like the shirt he pulled from the depths of his overnight bag and the vest he wears in the cool morning. The dark contrast of three-day beard growth highlights his eyes even more, and I see in them something … Continue reading →

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I am a woman obsessed. Right now I’m obsessed with waiting for the moon to rise. With the sun having sunk, outside is just a bit too chilly for the waiting, so I’m perched at the edge of my bed, facing the eastern window, wondering which peak or pine the moon will choose for its … Continue reading →

Thank you, Torrey House Press, for publishing this: https://www.torreyhouse.org/single-post/2020/04/22/That-Thing-with-Feathers-Hope-and-Literature-in-a-Time-of-Pandemic Continue reading →

I pull up to the water troughs where my son Ken awaits my arrival, and there stands Lacey on the flatbed trailer, watching safely from above as cows come to water. I haven’t seen her for days that have spilled into weeks and my heart rushes at the sight of her up there smiling in her purple … Continue reading →

A world within a world. I have just read these words when the dogs bark. Both of them. Serious barking. They only do this when there is something serious to bark at, so I leap up and feel a burn in my knee and then the cold of outside on my bare legs, hoping the serious … Continue reading →

I am close to getting my manuscript turned in to publisher Torrey House Press. (How can I say that calmly? This is HUGE. I’ve been working on it for YEARS. My thesis of the same name (Desert Chrome) was turned in to thesis committee chair Lidia Yuknavitch and reader Chip Livingston nearly three years ago. Since then … Continue reading →

This is a small excerpt from the forthcoming (in a year) Desert Chrome, because twenty-eight years ago now, as in today and tonight and tomorrow, this happened: Sonoran Desert 1992. Scott’s driving me south through the desert, to Tucson, to treatment. I try to write, journal in my lap, pen in my grip; I try to … Continue reading →

My book, Desert Chrome, will be published by Torrey House Press in the spring of 2021 (!). Here he is, the inspiration: mustang stallion Chrome, photo by TJ Holmes. If only my words can do him justice… Continue reading →