My parents have been married for nearly thirty years, and every year on Valentine’s Day, my dad gives my mom an epic Valentine.
Valentine’s Day, A Family Tradition
Taught Me
My family has taught me how to fight for the right to create, how to make it the most important thing in your day and your life. They have shown me that there is no direct route and how to forge my own.
Leave It Under the Tree
It’s the think, that they instilled in me, the idea that Christmas isn’t about toys or gifts – it never has been.
Family Effort
Because my family doesn’t just put up with my writing, as they were forced to do all those years ago in Asbury Park. They are an invaluable aid in finding the very best story, character or setting possible.
Be a Storyteller
I have been given a lot of advice. And while a great deal of it has been good (and, naturally, a great deal has been truly terrible as well,) nothing has yet come to claim the crown as these simple words from my grandfather.
It Takes a Village to Be a Writer
Inspiration, to me, comes in many forms. It’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. It’s J.K. Rowling and Pablo Picasso and Stephen King. It’s my grandparents, my mom and my dad.
Silence is Worth a Thousand Words [#MFRWAuthor]
For a blissful moment, all is silent. And then, as if the harpies of Hades have decided to torment the frustrated writer just a little bit longer, there is a scurry of nails. And another, until a full on squirrel orgy/disco/gladiator match is in swing in the rafters above my head.
Keep ‘Em Laughing
That’s how much family communicates. We talk in punchlines, puns and Marx Brothers quotes. Banter and witty repartee is the local dialect, combined with the ever-ubiquitous off-color joke or two and references to childhood stories that may or may not be true.
Remember Me
To speak to an uncomfortable truth, I often don’t trust my own memory.
Welcome to the Jungle
The greatest joke I ever told was when we got Houdini. He was six weeks old, a floppy white and brown mutt, the last in his litter to come up from the southern kill shelters, and unable to stand on his four, wobbly legs without going full spread starfish like Bambi on the ice.
