Move to Tacoma
I forgot to post this here earlier, but recently my good friend Marguerite started a website called Move to Tacoma. It’s a neighborhood guide, a blog, and full of interesting interviews. Including me! I was the second guest on her podcast and talked about our city’s strengths and our tendency to sometimes try to copy our neighbors (cough, Portland). So if you want to hear me talk about my hometown, you should definitely check it out. I was really happy with how it turned out. And hey, if you really like it, you should think about moving to Tacoma!
Still here.
I realize, to my chagrin, that it’s been two and a half months since I’ve posted here. As I said in my last post (way back in 2014) I am taking my writing more seriously. The Little Book of Boards is complete in all its forms (Kindle, paperback, and audiobook). I’m also working hard on The Iron Harvest. One of the big signs that I’m within shooting distance of the end when I create a scene-list of everything I know I have left to write. And I created that list just a few days ago! So that’s a very good thing. Read more…
New Flash Fiction: Eleventh Hour Brother
Two months ago, I discovered that some fellow indie writers were creating a “flash fiction” anthology that would span genres. I was very interested. The main stipulation: all stories had to be under 1,000 words. One thousand words really isn’t a lot. (The Lead Cloak is more than 100 times as long) It’s hard to do much in that short space, but that’s what appealed to me. I made the decision to do something I’ve never done before–I wrote the story on my phone. My thinking was that writing on my phone would help me conserve words (there’s a reason emails coming Read more…
Best Tacoman 2014
I was truly honored to discover last Thursday that I was named “Best Tacoma 2014” by the Weekly Volcano. It was a surprise, even though there was a big smiling picture of me on the cover. Mary and my friend Marguerite convinced me to do the photoshoot without knowing what it was for, and I’m glad I trusted them. Jason Ganwich took a wonderful photo, too! We were on the rooftop deck of one of the Triangle Townhomes (across from the Grand Cinema) to get this shot. Sometimes I worry I’m too scattered–parks, small business, writing, nonprofits and on and on. Read more…
Artist2Artist conversation with Marissa Meyer
Last month I sat down with the New York Times best-selling author Marissa Meyer to talk about writing, Tacoma, and more, for TVTacoma. It was a fun and likely conversation, and particularly because I have so enjoyed her books. (The Lunar Chronicles are a sort of sci-fi, steam-punk, fairy tale mashup that works really well, with very strong central characters in all of them. I definitely recommend them.) Here’s the feature: Talking shop with another writer was a lot of fun–so much so, that I’m working on a project that I hope will allow me to do it more often. More Read more…
Daffodowndilly
Did you know that an old word for daffodil is Daffodowndilly? What a great word! You can practically hear the softness of the flower. It’s a beautiful spring week here in Tacoma–the week after the Daffodil Festival, no less, so I’m thinking of spring and flowers. It also calls to mind a nice poem from A.A. Milne, much more famous for Winnie the Pooh than he is for this poem. But since it’s National Poetry Month, I think it’s very appropriate to share today. Daffodowndilly She wore her yellow sun-bonnet, She wore her greenest gown; She turned to the south wind And Read more…
11 Years in Downtown Tacoma
I moved to downtown Tacoma in August of 2002, living in the awesomely located and beautiful Bostwick Building. A year later I moved up the hill a couple blocks, and I’ve lived here ever since! There’s a lot to like about living downtown. The easy proximity to so many cool restaurants, coffee shops, and stores. How easy it made it for us to go to one car. This video has a little bit of us in, as we talk about what it’s like to live downtown with a young kid, but also the experiences of other people downtown as well. Read more…
Me … in watercolor
The awesome Tacoma artist Chandler O’Leary painted a watercolor portrait of me in her sketchbook last month. I’ve been meaning to post it here, but if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll see it there too. Chandler, among other projects, has a cool new site called “Drawn the Road Again” that is a watercolor/sketchbook travelogue. The whole site is illustrated and painted and it looks fantastic. (Side x Side helped her out with building it, hence the awesome portrait as a thank you). You can also expect to see Chandler’s artistic sense on the cover for my science Read more…
What is "Frank Herbert Park?"
I remember as a kid opening up “Dune” and seeing a picture of Frank Herbert, with his big bushy beard. His short author bio listed him as being from Tacoma. I was blown away. I was pretty young, and for some reason it hadn’t occurred to me that someone “famous” would have come from Tacoma. For some reason, I’ve always held that with me: Frank Herbert was a Tacoman. Which is why I was so excited to read his biography and discover what a life he lived while here, and how important Tacoma was to him and his writing. I Read more…
Parking along the Prairie Line Trail
According to Peter Callaghan, there are some ideas about parking cars along the possible new Prairie Line Trail. I don’t want to be that guy, but do we really need surface parking in downtown Tacoma so much that we want a portion of a pedestrian and bike trail for it? This is one of the most dense parts of downtown Tacoma, and yet within two blocks of the trail, there is plenty of parking. Check out this satellite image that I turned into an animated gif. Yes, some of these are privately owned garages and lots. But still: That’s an Read more…
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