Because it’s been such a rough week in politics, I wanted to open with a quick piece of advice from my boss at Civic Ventures, Zach Silk, that has helped me at moments like this. It’s okay to allow yourself to feel bad after a rough political loss, or an especially disappointing event. You’ve got to […]

Hi there! I got an email from Seattle writer Lesley Hazleton earlier this month, which was, on its own, not an especially unusual event. I had become Lesley’s friend after I gave her a Genius Award for literature at The Stranger years ago, and she’d occasionally drop me brief emails letting me know about books or articles […]

This month, my Neighborhood Reads column at the Seattle Times—in which I profile a different Seattle-area independent bookstore every month—officially turned five years old. So I worked very hard on an article sharing the things I’ve learned from Seattle’s many successful bookstores, and on a map charting every single one of the bookstores that I’ve visited or mentioned in the […]

Hi! Seattle’s Labor-Day-weekend music and arts festival, Bumbershoot, announced their arts programming earlier this month. There’s a fashion exhibit, an animation show, performance art, kinetic sculptures, a “comedy dome,” a cat circus, wrestling, gymnastics, skateboarding, and more. You know what they didn’t announce? A single damn literary event of any kind. This is a tremendous bummer. Bumbershoot […]

Hello! Lately, I’ve been thinking about writing comics again. After a year or so of slow going, three solid ideas have been banging around in my head, begging for further development. But I’ve had a hard time sitting down and writing those ideas out, and I decided that part of the problem is that it […]

Hello! I used to be obsessed with following presidential campaigns. Even in 1996, probably the most boring campaign in my lifetime, I kept close track of Bob Dole’s movements and dutifully listened to the debates. My obsession with presidential politics culminated in 2012, when I attended the Iowa caucuses and both the RNC and the […]

Hi there!  Earlier this month, AHOY Comics published my most recent comics work in Project: Cryptid #3, a story I wrote called “The Demon in the Pines.” It’s a pioneer story about the Pacific Northwest illustrated by the great Peter Krause and colored by the marvelous Pippa Bowland. Even better, my story is published in the same […]

Hi! First of all, thanks so much to those of you who sent sympathetic get-well-soon notes after last issue’s account of my first bout with Covid. You were so generous with your good wishes that I retroactively feel as though I somehow overplayed my sickness, but it was much appreciated at a time when I […]