As a scientist and author, I relate to the concept of Creative Nonfiction, since science is all about truth, and scientists strive to see the natural world creatively through a fresh lens, and a writer wants an audience. So I eagerly enrolled in a workshop on Creative Nonfiction taught by Lee Gutkind, acknowledged as founder [...]
Sometimes a novel absorbs me so completely I keep turning pages to find out what happens. If the outcome satisfies me, say the boy gets the girl (or vice versa!), I’m happy. If the girl marries someone else, such as in the short story White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, I’m crushed, as if I was [...]
In the prologue of my novel Jellyfish Have Eyes, Ricardo reflects on his dead wife and tells her, “If you had been there and seen the jellyfish, Lillian. They have eyes and minds. We have so much to learn from them.” Ricardo, a fierce believer in chasing ideas that fascinated him, had gone to La [...]
After having written a few personal essays laying the foundation for a memoir, I was uncertain whether the story of my life – a government scientist who had never suffered adversity or injustice – would have an audience. This question resurfaced in a different format in a discussion with colleagues in creative areas, when I [...]
Near the end of my upcoming memoir on my life in science, I think back on my trip to Lilloet in Canada to visit Van, my high school friend, whom I hadn’t seen in some 60 years. Van lived an independent life, including many years in a commune off the grid in British Columbia. Despite [...]
“Let’s go,” said Lona’s brother Larry many years ago. “I invite you all to Turkey to see the total solar eclipse for my 60th birthday.” The eclipse was going to be on August 11, 1999, literally the precise date of his birthday. I thought the birthday boy got the present! He wasn’t kidding, and Larry, [...]
