Deeper into the Forest
Some writers do their best to avoid all feedback from readers. I get it; they want to write without letting the opinions and perspectives of others affect the trajectory of their work. Personally, though, I find reader feedback heartening. Whether it’s positive, negative, or some original blend, feedback from readers signals that the story in question made some sort of impact—left a mark, if you will. The new Tim Green novel—number three, not that anyone’s counting, says the writer whose hard drive folder for this project has been labeled “3” since the day I created it—traces its origins to two...
Read MoreTim Green Will Return (Again)
Tim Green will return. Again. Readers of my newsletter and this space have known this was a possibility for some time, thanks to my barely contained enthusiasm about the new novel that’s been gathering momentum for the past two years. As of today, though, it’s official. And while it’s not time just yet to share details like title, publication date, and all the rest, I’m ready to share the subtitle… because for the first time, the new book will carry one: A Tim Green Novel. Since the protagonist of Believe in Me and Never Break the Chain has become the...
Read MoreSummer Thunder
For more than 20 years I’ve wondered when the right moment might be to tell this story—and now that moment has arrived. It happened on a sweltering midsummer Saturday, the kind of triple-digit Sacramento Valley scorcher that transforms sandals from footwear into safety devices. At the children’s swim meet we were attending, every racer would emerge from the pool and make straight for the relative oasis of shade offered by the tents and canopies blanketing the lawn just outside the fenced-in pool deck. The deck itself was lined on two sides by strips of shade produced by aluminum awnings painted...
Read MoreOf Being and Becoming
Wampus Multimedia publisher Mark Doyon once described my first novel Believe in Me as “a tale of being and becoming,” a phrase of such piercing power and insight that it still rattles around my brainpan on the regular a dozen years later. I didn’t recognize that’s what that story was about until Mark helped me to see it. The thing about “being and becoming”—that process of progressing from your old self toward a newer and possibly (hopefully) improved version—is that, with luck, you never stop doing it. Humans are meant to evolve and become several versions of ourselves between the...
Read MoreSaving Point Reyes
Every book has its own unique point of origin, that Big Bang moment when it first miraculously springs from nothingness into its author’s mind. You just never know when it’s going to happen, which helps to explain why this part of the process is both joyous and exasperating. What’s also true if you’re a writer who likes to hang with other writers is that sometimes you’re the parent of a book idea and sometimes you’re just a witness to its birth. Five years ago this month, Karen and I went to visit my older brother Gerry in Inverness, on the...
Read MoreA Month in Italy (Note by Note)
Karen and I try to take a substantial trip every year these days, the occasional global pandemic aside. Travel is a privilege that we've made a priority for the past decade (our “new” car right now is a 2006 Honda Civic) and we recently returned from our longest trip yet, 31 days in Italy. Let’s be clear, though: if you’re anticipating a sequel to Under The Tuscan Sun, that's not what's on offer here. This year’s trip—our third to Italy—was about exploring two parts of the country that we knew relatively little about: Sicily and Puglia. (Sicily you could probably...
Read MoreEvery Chapter is a Song
Stories with music woven into their fabric have carried many different labels over the years; my personal favorite is “musical fiction.” Still, it can be a struggle to describe stories like Believe in Me and Never Break the Chain in a way that truly captures how central music is to the lives of their characters. I’m perfectly happy to throw around terms like “musical fiction”—not to mention the more musical-genre-specific “rock novels”—but for the last decade I’ve also been calling them stories “infused with music.” Isolated open book “Infused with music” resonates with me because it captures both of the...
Read MoreThe Great Battle
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” This quote, often attributed to Philo of Alexandria, serves as the epigraph fronting my novel Never Break the Chain. It was a good fit for that story, in which every major character is up against a seismic challenge of one kind or another, but also one that continues to reverberate in real life. My brother Gerry, who teaches at the University of Virginia, recently quoted it to his students the first time they met after the November 13 shootings there, as a reminder that every single person they might...
Read MoreReunited States
Two years of isolation, disconnection, and toxic political divisiveness are enough to make anyone feel alienated—and enough to make the prospect of something as simple as a high school reunion feel like tap-dancing through a minefield. Going into my two-years-delayed 40th high school reunion a couple of weeks back I was anxious about two things: being in a large-ish group during a pandemic that’s not over yet—thankfully the group wasn’t that large and our reunion took place mostly outside—and hanging out with old friends whom I care about deeply, but in some cases disagree with dramatically when it comes to...
Read MoreThe Comet and the Colt
Arthur was special; that much was clear from the moment I first walked into his classroom. My high school buddies and I, we talked a good game, but inside we were scared as hell. We didn’t know what we wanted to do or who we wanted to be, we just knew there were expectations pressing in on us from all sides—family, teachers, peers—and we felt the urgency to figure it all out every day. Some part of that pressure resulted from the knowledge that we were privileged to attend an expensive private high school. On the flip side, one of...
Read More