Kirjahaku

Neighbors contains short humorous sketches of characters in a quirky neighborhood in a northern California city. Included in the book are a whimsical fictional piece, a memoir of an old friend, and an essay on fishing and aging.

Cycads are an ancient and engrossing group of plants, which are in process of being loved to death by wealthy collectors for the horticultural market the world over. One purpose in writing the book was to foster awareness of the plants and concern about their predicament. A larger purpose is to open a door into the wonderful workings of tiny insects and their interactions with and importance to their host plants. The book is about more than just the scientific setting. It is also, and maybe mostly, about the places and people encountered along the way. It is part science, part natural history, part travelogue, part memoir. It may not appeal to a mass audience, but it is a fact that there are some who will be interested. These are the cycad enthusiasts, who are passionate in their pursuit of the latest works on cycads. It is likely that other people who are curious about organisms other than themselves, and places on the planet other than their own, and about science, and who can relate to the self-doubting quest for knowledge, will find the book interesting.

A collection of short, short stories and a novella about everyday life and the search for meaning. Influences are Charles Bukowski, John Fante, Knut Hamsun, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Ernest Hemingway.

The story of two very different, yet deceptively similar men, whose lives on two continents run in parallel but reverse paths, before ultimately meeting on the southern tip of Africa.

Two brothers who have drifted apart, living on two different continents, meet in South Africa for a road trip and hoped for renewal of their relationship. Things turn out in the most unexpected way however.

A collection of short stories that is novelistic in that there is a timeline, a main character, interconnections among stories. It follows Jack Dugan through a series of mostly demeaning jobs over a 25 year period. The stories are mostly quite short, and eschew the climax and resolution of standard story-telling - they play out the way real life plays out.

Jack Dillon has recently taken an early retirement from his tenured position at a university on the West Coast. He has decided to visit his old home town in New Jersey (old home town because he's had so many other home towns). Within two days of his return, without a shred of forethought, he robs a bank, in the most casual way. His fugitive life takes him on a semi-circular journey around the state, meeting odd characters, and including two more bank robberies as well as a growing love connection with the teller he first robbed.

A novel of sex, love and loss that follows a man's life from adolescence to late middle age. Set in South Africa and the US.

In writing the bits that follow I set four main constraints on myself: 1) they had to be short; short enough to fit on a screen without any need to scroll down; 2) they had to be true to the rhythm of everyday, or better, every night speech; 3) they had to somehow have a point or feel or image that made them seem to punch above their weight; 4) they couldn't stray too far from the spontaneous-some next day tweaking might be acceptable but then they're gone. Though they may have a superficial resemblance to poems I resist any temptation to call them that. I like some poetry but I'm not a huge fan and I'm not deeply familiar with the body of poetry. Unlike most poems these bits do not have titles. Titles would be distracting, and in any case, bits don't need titles. They speak for themselves. These things are bits, no more and no less.

As in Bits off Burning Bridges, in writing the bits that follow I set four main constraints on myself: 1) they had to be short; short enough to fit on a screen without any need to scroll down; 2) they had to be true to the rhythm of everyday, or better, every night speech; 3) they had to somehow have a point or feel or image that made them seem to punch above their weight; 4) they couldn't stray too far from the spontaneous-some next day tweaking might be acceptable but then they're gone. Though they may have a superficial resemblance to poems I resist any temptation to call them that. I like some poetry but I'm not a huge fan and I'm not deeply familiar with the body of poetry. Unlike most poems these bits do not have titles. Titles would be distracting, and in any case, bits don't need titles. They speak for themselves. These things are bits, no more and no less. Also as in Bits off Burning Bridges, they are presented chronologically as written, without any re-arranging.

A collection of short stories and poems. Many have previously appeared in South Africa (New Contrast, Botsotso, Itch, NewLit) and the US (Chiron Review, Down in the Dirt, Children, Churches and Daddies, Verbicide, Travels Thru History).