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Point of View: A Prayer for All Good Things

hope - deposit photos

On this dark day,when all seems lost,say a prayer for all good things. A mother’s love,a father’s pride,family and the love they bring. The treasured ones,your dearest friends,feel their arms around your heart. Walks in sunlight,washed clean by rain,green sprouts break though concrete’s cracks. Words wrapped in tales,bright worlds explored,human spirit in a book. Hum of voices,coffee shop chat,something hot to warm your soul. Wise words once said:“This too shall pass,”time will carry us through it. Now let’s gatherhope like bright leaves,Dress ourselves in what might be. Brighter days come –Hold my hand andsay a prayer for all good things.

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Point of View: The World Holds Its Breath

winter window - deposit photos

Winter is normally a time when the world catches its breath, balanced between the worn-out old year and the fresh promise of the new. Bears and squirrels disappear into warm caverns and burrows, as the snowfall descends across the naked land. We exchange our short-sleeved shirts for itchy sweaters and lock ourselves inside warm boxes. And when we do go outside, the heat of our breath makes little clouds in the air. We struggle through the winter holidays – rain and snow and colds and flus and now Covid – and wait in expectation for the gentle breezes of spring … Read more

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Point of View: At Sac Anime

Sac Anime Winter 2025

A short but fun one today. I spent Friday through Sunday at Sac Anime with Marvin, Grete, Bel, and (not pictured) Aaron. We sold a ton of books, and the table looked great: There were some amazing cosplay costumes: And this one won the Con, for me: One more… on Sunday I had shown Bel and Grete an old Sesame Street Video I’d always loved, with two muppet Martians who descend from the sky to talk to a phone: And then the next day, look who came by? They were perfect, and we hadn’t laughed so hard since the start … Read more

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Point of View: Hopes and Fears for a New Year

man covering face - deposit photos

As we rapidly approach the new year, I find myself very much of two minds about it. I am deeply afraid of what might be coming. As a member of an often-prosecuted community, I see things a bit differently than many of my straight friends, including frightening echoes of history from almost a hundred years ago. And yet, I also see reasons to hope. Yes, my worst fear has been realized. But now that it’s here. I’m finding ways to stand in my truth and rally others around me, and dare I say it, to still hope. So I thought … Read more

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Point of View: Inherent Goodness

Inherent Good - deposit photos

These are the times that try a gay writer’s soul. The last eight years have been an unending roller coaster of horrible things – scandals, setbacks, vitriol and verbal assaults, norms smashed to bits, wars, and to top it all off, a once-in-a-century pandemic that changed everything. Despite all that, I was caught off guard by the results of the US election last month. No, if I’m honest, it was far worse than that. It was like a freight train full of bowling balls and anvils had crashed into me and smashed me against a brick wall. Before all of … Read more

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Point of View: The Great Escape

Man staring at buildings made of books - deposit photos

I can’t bear it. I can’t let myself think too far ahead right now. I know the awful is coming, and for a few more precious weeks, I just want to bury my head in the sand like they say ostriches do (even though they don’t, really). So I’m looking for a few all-encompassing escapes. One of those is popular entertainment. Mark and I are binging the whole Ally McBeal series, which was from the late nineties and dealt with grand themes like misogyny in the workplace, which thankfully no longer exists (this is where I really need a sarcasm … Read more

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Point of View: Stuck in Life’s Elevator

stuck in an elevator - deposit photos

I have to admit, I’m at a bit of a loss on what to write about this week. Everything feels… stuck. Like we’re in an elevator that never makes it to the ground floor. I’m in the middle of writing three different books – a problem of my own devising, I’ll admit, and one that lets me range through different genres and keep my multi-tasky brain happy. But it also means I’m in three different muddy middles at once. Stuck. I’ve been looking for a new job for a full year now, and though time and time again I get … Read more

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Point of View: Seasons of Change

Autumn forest - deposit photos

Fall is finally here in Northern California. Officially, it arrived a little over three weeks ago, but we had temperatures into the hundreds until early last week. Now at last, the days are milder and the Delta Breeze brings us cool air in the evenings. There’s that indefinable sense of change in the air, when the leaves slowly start to yellow, the days grow noticeably shorter, and many of our favorite television shows return, creating a train wreck in our streaming apps. The seasons of life are slowly changing too. Mark and I just said goodbye to two dear friends, … Read more

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Point of View: Loss, Hope, and Life Journeys

lighted path - deposit photos

It won’t be long now. A dear friend of ours is in hospice care, on the final steps of her life journey. It came on suddenly, and her decline has been shocking and heartbreaking. Yesterday, we saw her for probably the last time. While I wouldn’t have missed it, I couldn’t help thinking that the person we used to know was already gone. A few days ago, I had a phone conversation with my Mom, who had just lost one of her beloved dogs, Jake. She talked about loss, not just of the people and fur babies in her life, … Read more

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Point of View: Filtering Reality

writer staring out window - deposit photos

Reality informs everything we write. We grow up in the real world. We learn the real names of things, we navigate our way through real life and real school and real relationships. Our lives are lived solidly in the real world, and we can’t help that, as writers, our fiction is shaped by it. And yet… Books (and TV and film) are by their very nature escapist mediums. They let us turn off our brains to escape reality for an hour (or three) and immerse ourselves in someone else’s version of the world. During the great Depression, movies were one … Read more