Category Archives: The West

My Short Story, "The Lives of Gofers," in The Superstition Review

So I have a short story titled “The Lives of Gofers” out today in an online literary magazine, The Superstition Review, set in a hardscrabble Colorado. It’s available for all to read at this url: http://superstitionreview.asu.edu/n8/ This fall I also … Continue reading

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Christo's Next Art Project, "Over the River," Gets Approved, and Will Be in My Backyard

So there’s good news for art lovers of the world: Installation-art guru Christo has finally got approval for his project titled “Over the River,” which will be located about twenty short miles north of my Colorado home, on the Arkansas … Continue reading

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On Paul Gilding's "The Great Disruption," With a Nod to Eugene Linden's "The Future in Plain Sight"

So I’m a sucker for ‘big vision’ books about the future and the myriad problems we face with climate change and resource depletion, and right now I’m reading Paul Gilding’s The Great Disruption. It manages to be at once peppy … Continue reading

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A Great Divide: Attitudes About Climate Change Remarkably Different Around the U.S., With Sharp Divide Along East/West

So one thing I’ve noticed the last few years in my peripatetic life of inhabiting both the Eastern and the Western U.S. is a noticeable division in attitudes about Climate Change. In a nutshell, it seems as though the West … Continue reading

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On the Illegal Immigration Debate, Tim Egan's Savvy Op-Ed, and How It Appears in Novels

So Tim Egan has a blistering attack on the scapegoating of Latinos in the latest Republican presidential debates, and the whole issue of illegal immigration and migrant workers, here: I grew up in a predominantly Latino area of South Texas … Continue reading

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On Prophecies in "The Bird Saviors": Dust Storms in Texas

So my forthcoming novel, The Bird Saviors—due out in (what’s left of) bookstores in May/June—opens with a dust storm in southern Colorado, and when I began writing it some five years ago, I imagined it set in a fuzzy ‘near … Continue reading

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Pete Dexter in the New York Times!

So it’s a good day when you stumble upon a book review of a Jim Harrison novel written by none other than one of our best living novelists, Pete Dexter, here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/books/review/the-great-leader-by-jim-harrison-book-review.html?ref=books&pagewanted=all My favorite paragraph, about fiction: “Put together, these … Continue reading

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Reading Daniel Yergin's "The Quest" & a Witty Post About Truthiness

So I’m reading the much-talked-about new tome on energy and the future, Daniel Yergin’s The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, just published. So far I’m not particularly impressed, especially after Dwight Garner’s rave review in … Continue reading

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"127 Hours" as Big-Budget "I Shouldn't Be Alive," With a Nod to the Great "Touching the Void"

So I finally got around to watching the much-acclaimed/suspect film of Aaron Ralston’s self-amputation, 127 Hours, and actually thought it was pretty good, even if my hotel owner/chef in Green River, Utah held a grudge against Ralston for not paying … Continue reading

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Climate Change Coverage in the NY Times

So I have decidedly mixed feelings about most of our media, no matter how much I read or watch it, as I imagine most of us do. (I make a point to read CNN just to see the latest blather … Continue reading

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