Bookshelves are supposed to be personal, revealing, windows on the book collector’s personality and tastes. Anyone who looks at my bookshelves will immediately think I’m schizophrenic. Who has Stephen King next to Dorothea Benton Frank? Who has Clive Cussler next to William Shakespeare? Who has Nora Roberts next to Beverly Jenkins or Boris Pasternak next … Read more

My life is contained in small spaces. My living space on land is 400 square feet. My living space on water is 250 square feet. A former linen closet is my office. Somehow it all works. And yet I am not a minimalist. I have a theory about clutter. It starts small, multiplies in the … Read more

I love history. I majored in it in college. When I graduated I became a newspaper reporter. There were no job listings for “historians.” Writing about current events seemed like the next best thing. One of my professors had urged me to write local history. He knew I was a sixth generation Californian and said … Read more

Finally, we were on vacation. The Romance Writers of America annual convention in San Diego was over (that was work because I dutifully attended as many craft sessions as I could squeeze in). We’d visited good friends for two days. And we were on our way to my son’s house to spend ten days dog-sitting … Read more

A new bookstore opened in Los Angeles recently. It’s gutsy to open an independent bookstore anywhere these days, but this one is particularly noteworthy. It’s called The Ripped Bodice and it sells only romance novels. The women who opened the store are Bea and Leah Koch, sisters who grew up in Chicago. Bea went to … Read more