I'm from LA. Went to school in Santa Cruz, for undergrad, back when I wanted to be a journalist, then U of Maryland for an MFA in fiction writing, and a bunch of other schools so I can teach high school in New York City. Lived in San Francisco, Istanbul, Washington DC, and Brooklyn, where I've been for almost 30 years. For 27 years, I have been a NYC high school English teacher and instructional coach. I live alone, which I like. At one point, I thought I wanted to be a high school principal, and it turns out, I do not. I have a wonderful 16-year-old daughter who is much cooler and smarter than I have ever been, thankfully.

Because of work, I take my laptop and write after school, and in the evenings. Sometimes I write during my lunch period in the little courtyard smack in the middle of the school building. I am in fantastic Zoom writing group called Book Buddies led by my writing coach, Kate Senecal, and write with them Tuesdsay evenings and Saturday mornings. 

George Saunders, who I went to hear read in February in the middle of a snowstorm--I read his latest, Vigil, and have his story collections on my shelf to continually reread, as well as his incredible book for writers, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain; Kevin Baker, whose novel Dreamland is about Coney Island, which is the subject of a novel I am writing; and, Jacob Riis, as his photographs of New York's Lower East Side in the late 19th Century are inspiring for my writing.

I am waylaid by the enormity and time period of my novel project, which starts at the end of the 19th Century. I spend too much time trying to visualize everything, which I am doing through books--i.e. Riis--and movies of the period. They say write what you know, but I never liked that much, found it too limiting, although many of my short stories are exactly that. I get the intent of that instruction because I don't know Coney Island of 1897 and I'm trying to imagine it with the details at my disposal.

When I get a small section right, or what reads or feels right. For me, it's all about getting the language and voice the way I want, because then, the images and characters seem to take care of themselves. Sometimes, that enjoyment won't happen for weeks and weeks, and then one day, the light goes on and I feel goosepimples all over.

I would go back to the years after grad school and tell myself to find a writing community. Of course, we write alone. But bouncing ideas of fellow and trusted writers is invaluable. My writing community now props me up when I'm down, or lack confidence, or feel like I can never write something good ever again. For several years, after my marriage, I dated a writer. It ended badly, and, as she read all of my writing and gave me feedback, I didn't think I would write anymore. Since editors can be mercililess--except for you, Emma, lol--I thought: no one will be able to talk to me about writing in a language I can understand. But I was wrong. Thankfully. 

I am writing a novel that takes place in Coney Island, five or so generations of an immigrant Jewish family, over about 125 years. I have never written a novel before--I have always been a short story writer--and have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

Reading, watching basketball, listening to recorded and live music, smoking weed, walking around New York City, having dinner with my daughter or hanging out with friends.

Grace Jones answered the door in a string bikini when I delivered champagne to her house as a teenage delivery boy; I played bass for a band that opened up for the GoGos in a Hollywood club in the 1980s, back when most of band had shaved heads and had not yet made it big; I was spit on in the face by a man who identified himself as a Kurdish liberation fighter near the Syrian border.