nevada city coffee shop

Community: A Reincarnated Coffee House

As many people know, I’m of the “café society” ilk of writers: I work quite well when seated in a bustling coffee house. I say that this comes from being the eldest of four kids, where family action took place in a big kitchen and I learned to do my homework surrounded by lots of […]

broken floor

The Mystery of the Melting Floor

Once upon a time, in 1999, I bought a house. My first house. An uninhabitable house. This is a long story, so I’m going to leave lots of it out. Not just one house: an acre of land with two houses on it, both uninhabitable, and a small studio off the back deck, 10 x […]

sallys cabin

Design: Sally’s Tahoe Cabins

When you’re a writer, people always ask when you began writing. The answer is often, “Oh, when I was eight,” or “I’ve been writing all my life.” I didn’t write until I was 35. When I was eight, I was drawing floor plans for log cabins in the wilderness, and trying to listen carefully when […]

ocean view

A Borrowed Beach House

I have some wonderful friends. One of them loaned me her house last month, which overlooks the entrance of Tomales Bay. The town and the beach are both named Dillon Beach. If there is no fog, you can see across the bay to the Point Reyes National Seashore and then south to where the sun […]

sierra coffee roasters

Where to Find Me: Sierra Mountain Coffee Roasters

Every morning for the last several years I have jumped out of bed, raced into some clothes, and driven on automatic pilot over to my favorite café for breakfast. “Breakfast” =  coffee, some sort of protein, and a whole wheat bagel or equivalent. “Coffee” = a latte. The food plan I follow asks me to […]