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

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

I’ve come to greatly admire my daughter’s cello teacher. The woman is unrelentingly positive. And good at playing cello. During the teacher’s lesson my daughter’s fingers move deftly over the cello’s four strings, as if under a spell, and I’m shocked at how the sounds often don’t match those made at our house.

I don’t know squat about playing

Things are happening in my country. Bad and probably good things, but mostly big and heavy and hard to carry things. Everyone’s “taking a stand,” posting rants and heartfelt messages and quoting dead people. A few are actually doing something—walking in marches and holding candles.

But not me. I’m just sitting here grinding

Hello again, pretty blog people! The other day I met up with independent author Missy Anne Peterson at a local hotspot where they serve a mean tofu and egg English muffin sandwich and asked her questions about her debut novel, Jimmy James Blood, a dark story about a rough group of teenagers growing

Not that I need an excuse to blow shit off, but blogging (re: my lack of) has taken a back seat to this whole novel-writing thingy. I go to sleep thinking about my Other World and my People. I wake up all itchy to know what’s happening with them.

Kinda like

Last night I was telling my husband why I’ve been such a bitch lately. I get lost, see. I get sad and lonely and feel unworthy. Then I do bad things.

Yesterday I didn’t want to use the internet at my house because we were on the verge of going over our

“Waah! OooRaaaah!” A lost child was crying somewhere near our bus stop. 

My daughter’s head was swiveling. I wanted to keep walking. I didn’t want to get involved. These situations are never what they seem.

“There! In that tree!” She pointed to a thick branch about thirty feet overhead in a fir tree. A cat,

Growing up, my dad liked ferreting out individuals who routinely made decisions that resulted in terrible consequences. Like when a co-worker started dating a man who had “unfairly been sent to prison” or when the neighbor guy invested his savings in Amway. “Sure, they’re book smart, but they don’t have

A man’s face appeared outside the window of my office two days ago. Dark-haired. Early thirties. Startled me out of my chair.

I had been sitting at the computer typing away on a story. He stepped onto my porch, silent. His body made a shadow on the floor. I turned. He stared

Do you see my bird friend? He’s in the very center.

A lone red-breasted bird in my yard uses his beak like tiny tongs to pick up wet, rotting maple leaves. The leaves stick together, but he manages to flip over these soggy pancakes, and delve into the underneath.

The first time I went to NYC and told people I was from Alaska, they asked if I lived in an igloo. Unfortunately, no. I didn’t grow up in a house made of ice. That would’ve been way more exciting than our unremarkable middle-class house on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.

Aside the from