When she was younger, she was "too prissy to be athletic."  Ernestine Shepherd started body-building at 71.  At 75, she's still at it and she's teaching others at her Methodist church.  "This is my ministry," she says on a BBC tape, (drawn to my attention by Alias Reader on Goodreads.com.)  Now Ms. Shepherd leads classes  at church […] Read More

First I saw that my novel Revelation was listed as #1 on Amazon.  I didn't take this too seriously because it's three-quarters the way through its one-day free Kindle copy give-away.  (Reader, you can get your own free copy until around midnight Pacific time today Sunday June 10, if I understand correctly.) Then I noted […] Read More

The air is full of tributes today to witer Ray Bradbury who died at 91.  He deserves them.  He was an exceptionally-alive guy.  In fact I ran across one protest on Facebook from a writer who said that Bradbury had just Friended her.  So apparently he was active and up-to-date to the end. I met him […] Read More

  From the Submissions guidelines page of an admirable small press called Tyrant Books:   "Submissions are so fucking closed you have no idea." Read More

Browsing a blog by literary agent Dana Newman, I found this unnerving picture and caption:  "My daughter rappelling down a slot canyon in Utah, during a trip her 7th grade class took with the National Outdoor Leadership School last week. She’s so much braver than me!" (I think mother and daughter are both seriously gutsy.) Read More

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my friend Carrie Knowles' modeling debut at the event called Redress Raleigh. This was her first run down the runway, and she was born in the same long-ago year that I was. I found the whole undertaking quite bold. Well, the show — of local designers doing ecological […] Read More

Goodness gracious!  My novel Revelation, which came out on Kindle last week, is suddenly Number 11 on the Amazon list of Bestselling Books on Mysticism and New Age Religion.  That is, as of 4:00 p.m. Friday.  These figures and lists are updated hourly.  Here's the page: http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/12673/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_2_4_last  Not only was it that high on the list, […] Read More

ON SALE!!!   For one day, my mystical novel REVELATION, newly a Kindle e-book, will be on sale for 99 cents.  That day begins as soon as Amazon makes the change.  Here's the link to check: http://www.amazon.com/Revelation-ebook/dp/B007X45DOO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1336660926&sr=1-1   Remember: THE NEW YORK TIMES says it's "very good…You want to find out what is going to happen." Read More

  Isn't she magnificent?  Not everyone on this very cool blog is — but all are interesting.  There's some very bold style here.  Go visit Advanced Style.  There's also a hardcover spinoff by the same title coming out this very month. Read More

It has been a tumultuous week.  All in the course of the last several days, I've necessarily switched mental health drugs (which is always a storm at sea)  and I've released on Kindle my novel Revelation, which Simon & Schuster published in hardback back in the distant days of 1988 and Banks Channel Books put […] Read More