New Book Alert!
Dearest community, I write with exciting news! At long, long last:: ART ABOVE EVERYTHING, the book project to which I have devoted the past decade of my life, has both a pub date and a cover:: “Is the all-encompassing quest…
Category Uncategorized
Summer Workshop: Writing The Body
Join me this summer for a weeklong Creative Nonfiction workshop called WRITING THE BODY, in which we will narrate the wide range of experiences a body can undergo in a lifetime. We will start with an exploration of notions of…
Paperback Launch
Feliz 2020, everyone! I hope that your new year is off to a grand start. Just wanted to share the news that All the Agents & Saints has just been released in paperback, and includes a new preface about the borderlands in…
Book Review: Paul Theroux
The vaunted travel writer Paul Theroux has just released a mammoth new travelogue about Mexico called ON THE PLAIN OF SNAKES. Here is an excerpt of my review for the Washington Post: ….”Minus a few policemen, nearly everyone Theroux meets…
The Tao of Po
Yesterday, my family buried our guiding light: Dick “Po” Griest, my father. I spent the last week writing his eulogy. Sharing it with all of our friends and family who gathered yesterday was the great honor of my life. I…
Lost Children Archive
A novel has emerged from the humanitarian crisis at the border. Not only is it an indictment of U.S. immigration policy, but a requiem memorializing every child who has ever lost their right to a childhood. Here is a snippet of…
The Mentor
Charles “Chuck” Whitney joined the Journalism faculty at the University of Texas at Austin my sophomore year there, and I was lucky to land in his first reporting class. He taught with such rigor and panache, he would have been…
The Oracle Says…
Feliz 2019! I hope your new year is off to a grand start. Before it ambles any farther, here is a little update from my corner. With 2017 concluding in a CT-Scan that released me from cancer treatment, I deemed…
Resurrection
What got me through abdominal surgery, three rounds of chemo, and hair loss? First: all of you. And second, the hope of resurrecting my book tour for ALL THE AGENTS & SAINTS. It gives my heart joy to say: I’m…
Rejoice!
Beautiful people! I am relieved to share that 2017 concluded with the sweetest acronym I know: NED, or No Evidence of Disease. The CT-Oracle revealed that surgery + three cycles of chemo have wiped my abdominal cavity clean. This rollercoaster…