Author and Ghostwriter
In this, the third blog about my Ayahuasca experience, there will continue to be no talk of swirly psychedelic images or seeing the faces of one’s ancestors. People writing about Ayahuasca often claim such things happen, and all I can say is… whatever, dude. Neither I nor anyone else I talked to from my ceremony … Read more
This is blog two in a series of Ayahuasca blogs. I’m not going to walk you through every wacky adventure that happened during the experience, or even one. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. What’s interesting about this is is not the experience but the results, which you become aware of afterward as the DMT gradually leaves … Read more
I was originally going to call this I took Ayahuasca and I Pissed Myself but that would only be pandering to readers who want silly, dramatic headlines. This isn’t something I want to be silly and dramatic about (even though that above part is true). And the “purging” aspect of Ayahuasca that caused this phenomenon … Read more
I, for once, was on the interviewee side of an interview when I was a guest on the unique podcast Other You by Daniel Moreno. A creative memoir writer in his own right, Moreno’s unusual approach to podcasting is to ask subjects about a certain time in their lives when they made a big decision … Read more
Hello readers and welcome to me being driven slowly crazy by well-meaning people who can’t really be criticized for saying what they believe to be a compliment. Clearly this isn’t obvious, so I’m here to tell you: calling someone a “strong woman” is exactly the same as calling someone a “clean African American.” Or a … Read more
You want to become a great writer. You feel like there’s a story in you, or three. But when you sit down to write, you find feelings, impressions, memories, and numerous disconnected ideas. How do you turn these random thoughts into stories? I’m about to tell you how to do it, so read closely. Stories … Read more
My mother’s nickname in our family was “the dog psychologist,” because whenever our dog behaved strangely she always had some complicated explanation for how it must be feeling based upon the traumas she imagined it had experienced before we got it from the pound. This sounds familiar, right? We love to put people, animals, friends, … Read more
I have a friend that’s a composer. I once asked him, “How do you know how to blend together the violin and the french horn and the kettle drum and all those different instruments?” He looked at me funny and replied, “You go to graduate school.” What he meant by that was: “It’s complicated!” That’s … Read more
I have begun teaching the second wave of classes in my ongoing series. The second wave, which I call “Writers in Action” is an actual critique session, where, in a group setting, I look at student work with a view to how well students are embodying the lessons learned in the free technique classes I … Read more
We just had our third class in a series: “Make ’em Beg for It,” and I think this actually completes a three-class series that sets my students up to start writing with a good sense of what they’re doing. The first class was about identifying a story’s setting and action without the emotional, philosophical, and … Read more