Here’s the essay played on PBS Television (“SoCal Connected”) the Thursday before the Inauguration: When my mother was a little girl back in El Salvador there was something she and every single kid in the first grade had to do: recite poetry. And I’m not talking about “Roses are red violets are blue,” no. They [...]
The Holy Spirit of My Uncle’s Cojones–The Movie…
I’m writing a screenplay. How many times has that sentenced been uttered in this town? Walk into any Starbucks in Los Angeles, you’ll see two or three people with their laptops, and you know what they’re doing. This screenplay is based on one of my earlier novels, The Holy Spirit of My Uncle’s Cojones. Latino-Appalachian [...]
Writing in & writing out
The same questions haunt every writer’s thoughts—who wants to read this? Who cares? I’ve kept journals for over thirty years; they’re stacked up behind me in my office. Thirty years, since my girlfriend Nancy Horn gave me the first one, just to keep me from pouting away into her ear for attention (she was smart, [...]
