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”

What I Learned About Writing from a Tomato

I am a gardener. And I’m a writer. So naturally, every day from 9 to 5, I am wracked with guilt and mild self-loathing. When I am outside in the garden, I feel guilty that I am not at my desk, butt-in-chair, working on my next blog or novel. When I’m at my desk, I wonder what kind of idiot willingly sits in a dark basement on a beautiful gardening day. Continue reading “What I Learned About Writing from a Tomato”