Books help me live a better life. Here’s an eclectic 12-book list of my especially noteworthy 2020 reads.
P.S. Books make great gifts!

The other day, I was video chatting with my walking buddy, Jo, about viruses and plagues—what else?—and I explained (with no shortage of passion) how if humanity is to be ended by pandemic, this whole get-put-on-a-ventilator-for-weeks-until-life-slowly-drains-out-of-you gets a giant Boo Hiss from me. The human race warrants a more proficient viral assassin, I said. Like maybe a heartstopper. Something fast, but not too gross.

In my mind, I could see the transparent container of blue-ish concentrated Basic H sitting in its familiar shelf in our laundry room, and I knew that my mom relied upon it like a bottle of miracles to kept our house clean and germ-free. To keep me safe.

 Originally published by 49 Writers. Photo by Clark Fair.

I was a teen in 1990s Soldotna, Alaska—the setting for my debut novel—so people often ask me if The Ocean in My Ears is a thinly disguised memoir. The short

I bet not a single family member, friend, or even social media contact is unaware that I wrote a book that’s coming out this fall from Portland State University’s Ooligan Press. There’s been plenty of social media hubbub.

My own story as a writer is one of achieving a dream. Mine is

Did I mention that I have a new author website? I do thanks to the excellent Jodi Chromey. There’s stuff here about me and the book–look around!–and thanks to the talented Jo Arlow there’s a lovely shot of me and my dog, and if you look close, I’m sitting on a toilet.

A couple

Because the world can be a jaded place.

Margaret Atwood’s themes of survival, images of the body, and the implicit questions about what it means to be female reached inside me and shook me. Slowly, on the cusp of twenty years old, I began to wake from a dark, oblivious sleep.