Blog
January 4, 2018
It Occurs to Me that I am America
Lotty Herschel is in prison in my short story, “Safety First.” This story is one of many original stories and pieces of art created for the anthology It Occurs to Me that I am America. All royalties from the sale of this book will go to the ACLU as they fight for our Constitutional rights.
READ MOREOctober 31, 2017
Chiara’s Third Anniversary
It was three years ago today that Chiara came into our lives, courtesy of Christina Yohe in Missouri. In May, we had lost our beautiful girl, Callie, to a bone tumor that pressed into her brain, and I was not ready for another dog.
READ MOREMarch 13, 2017
Watch VI in Action. See her with Sal. See — VI the Video!
If you’ve read the VI Warshawski books or stories, you know she travels the city up and down. She started when she was a child, performing hair-raising escapades with her cousin Boom-Boom, and she’s still racing around Chicago today.
READ MOREFebruary 23, 2017
Fallout – Chapter 1
“The police say it was drug related, ma’am. They think August was stealing to deal.” Angela Creedy spoke so softly I had to lean forward to hear her.
“That is a bêtise—a—a lie, a stupidity.” Bernie Fouchard stomped her foot for emphasis.
January 29, 2017
Weeping
My grandmother was a young teenager in 1911 when she sailed, alone, past the Statue of Liberty into New York harbor. She was fleeing her homeland at her mother’s insistence: her father had been murdered in his bed, in front of his family, by an angry mob — murdering Jews was a frequent public sport in eastern Europe, as lynching African-Americans was in the southern U.S.
READ MOREJanuary 22, 2017
Grant Park, Chicago, January 21, 2017
I am almost 70. I have been an activist for Civil Rights and Reproductive Rights since I was 19, and there are days when I am weary with the struggle, but not today, not here, with 250,000 other Americans ready to work together to protect our rights.
READ MORENovember 28, 2016
This Constitution Stays Alive
Trump “is going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to the Jews,” reads the handwritten letters delivered to California mosques. “You Muslims would be wise to pack your bags and get out of Dodge.”
READ MOREJuly 22, 2016
SubGroups
In our Sunday School class, we learned about the many contributions to medicine, science, philosophy and the the arts which members of our subgroup had made; we cheered Sandy Koufax, for refusing to pitch in the World Series on one of our important holidays.
READ MOREFebruary 19, 2016
Life and Death and Crime Novels
Like all crime writers, I explore death daily, in what I read and what I write. It’s a game, of course. Some of my brother/sister writers love every graphic detail of dismemberment. I’m too squeamish for that, but still, VI Warshawski has just encountered a dead body in a rural kitchen, where there’s plenty of scope for gruesome description.
READ MOREDecember 15, 2015
Dirty Deeds in the Cornfield
Dead End The sun was setting when Peppy and I drove east of town, looking for Doris McKinnon’s farm. I’d spent a tense two hours at the hospital, but […]
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