1. 85. Don’t Let the Door Hit You in the Ass, 2014

   

   Like most nice Italian girls, I was raised on a diet of pasta and grudges. Read more →

2. 86. Christmases Past

   

   Holidays have never been easy in my family. Emotions run high, grudges resurface, nasty disagreements are aired in all their screaming glory. Read more →

3. 87. Come Hide Under My Umbrella

   

   It’s been raining in Los Angeles. Finally. Read more →

5. 88. Writing is Fucking Hard

   

   I have a writer crush. Read more →

6. 89. Flash Fiction Studio at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program

   

   I’m excited to be teaching in the 2015 UCLA Extension Writers’ Program Writers Studio this winter. Read more →

7. 90. The Grinch or the Three Faces of Eve?

   

   It’s the holiday season, that time of year when the world falls in love…

   My ass it is. Read more →

9. 91. Scream Therapy

   

   I used to sing. It wasn’t what I was best at, but it was what I loved most. Even as a kid I knew I didn’t have the strongest instrument. My voice was small, light, airy. Nothing like Barbra Streisand’s powerhouse vocals on the vinyl records that I played over and over on my olive green portable record player. Her voice was big and bold, muscular in a way that I envied.

   Read more →

10. 92. Make a List and Check It Twice

    

    In this season of giving and gratefulness, I have a confession to make: I am a big old pessimist. Any glass I see isn’t just half empty, it’s parched dryer than the Sahara and has a crack bigger than the San Andreas fault. Read more →

11. 93. Highlights: New on Writers’ Resources

    

    These past weeks, I’ve added lots of links to my Writers’ Resources page. I’ve found some fantastic posts about submissions, craft, the literary marketplace, etc., so I thought I’d highlight a few. Read more →

13. 94. A Change of Place

    

    Finding the time–and the place–to write can be a bitch. Read more →

14. 95. Somewhere to Play

    

    When I first started writing fiction, my characters often walked around a blank landscape. Imagine two cartoon characters, say Calvin and Hobbes (my favorites), centered on a white page with nothing to play with, nothing to break or throw or kick or transform. Nothing to do but talk to each other. That’s where my characters used to live, in that boring, blank universe. And guess what? Nothing much happened. Read more →

15. 96. Cirque Salon Fiction Reading

    

    Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of reading with Toni Ann Johnson and Désirée Zamorano at the first Cirque Salon Fiction Reading at Book Show in Highland Park. Read more →

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