The Buffalo I Have Lost and Found

I went back to my hometown this summer to visit family and friends, and to do research for my nearly completed novel, set in Buffalo during the late 1960s. As is so often the case when I write stories, I learn things about myself in the process that surprise me. I discovered, for example, that I still love Buffalo with a fierceness usually reserved for my fellow human beings. So I started to wonder, how is love for a place different from love for a person? Am I simply feeling an aching nostalgia, or am I feeling something deeper, more profound? Continue reading “The Buffalo I Have Lost and Found”

Let Me Introduce Myself

Please call me Moxie.

No, it’s not the name I was given at birth. It was bestowed upon me late one night after a drinking contest in a bar…but that’s a story for another day. Suffice it to say it is the name I prefer to be called.

Here are a few things you should know about me before you decide whether it is worth taking the time to read my blog. I’m a writer and a dreamer. A Master Gardener and a schemer. I like the smell of warm wood and the sound of insects in the evening. I like island nations that cruise lines don’t visit, and the underbellies of airplanes when they fly over the setting sun. I cry when I hear music played in a minor key, or the song of the white-throated sparrow. I love cannoli, limoncello, and snow.

At one point in my life I wrote over 100 speeches. At another I published dozens of magazine articles. I never look at any of them, but I do enjoy perusing the 27 personal journals I have tucked away in an old steamer trunk. Most recently, I’ve written a novel about growing up on the West Side of Buffalo. Unfortunately, it makes me homesick every time I read it.

So reader, beware. My mind flits about like a honeybee in early spring, so there is no telling what I might blog about. I will try my best not to waste your time.