I was wobbling a bit in my determination to go to my second Moral Monday this week. Standing around listening to an hour and a half of speeches wasn’t calling me. (Though certainly I wanted to contribute again to the protest against what the NC General Assembly is doing to women, blacks, the poor, […] Read More

Once I get something in my head, it turns up everywhere.  A color, for example.  The day after my launch of Cobalt Blue in L.A.  I was walking on the beach with my friend Randee Russell Bieler and three cobalt blue coconuts washed up in the shallow foamy edge of the surf.  Now probably cobalt […] Read More

A neo-Zen koan:  Can one reach enlightenment while obsessed with one's books' Amazon rankings? The answer might seem obvious.  But in my busy little brain, it's not obvious at all.  Brain says:  who needs enlightenment…or any of what that easy word stands for? I'd probably go with snarky Brain's take on this, except that it […] Read More

It was stirring.  A pep rally for justice.  Click on this green link for a moment of audio/video to give you a feel of the day: MVI_2826 I was late coming to the table for Moral Monday.  It has been going on for weeks. What is it, you ask (if you're not from NC)?  It's […] Read More

For years, I've heard friends talking about dealing with a relative's dementia. It sounded awful.  My friend Carrie Knowles even wrote a book about it: The Last Childhood, which opens with one of the stronger first sentences ever:  "Last night I dreamed my mother knew my name." But no matter how familiar the subject, one's […] Read More

Talking about Cobalt Blue (my sexy spiritual novel) on UNC-TV, while dressed as The Life Force.   Read More

Ex-porn stars Christy Canyon and Ginger Lynn were about to interview me live on SiriusXM radio about my novel Cobalt Blue. I was, of course,  nervous, casting about.  Maybe it would help if I knew what they were going to ask, something I usually don't inquire about in advance because I prefer to be surprised.  […] Read More

In the wee-and-growing-larger hours of last night, I vainly googled myself, once again. This time not in vain. Google Alerts has not been doing its job: there were a number of pleasing items about novel Cobalt Blue that I hadn’t seen. Here’s one: らきふた 作者:amazon:止田卓史 サークル:google:”あしたから頑張る … Book Cobalt Blue · Roundfire Books Peggy Payne […] Read More

From Mooji: "Take the attitude that you will discover the Truth today! If you say, you are going to take a year off work to search for the Truth, it will take at least a year. For, like this the mind has just been given a one-year visa to continue indulging in its antics."   […] Read More

Books that fit into a genre usually attract more readers.  Mystery? Romance? Paranormal romance? Paranormal teen romance? Or steampunk, perhaps.  Genres have lots of subgenres.  From Urban Dictionary:  "Steampunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction, usually set in an anachronistic Victorian or quasi-Victorian alternate history setting…."  Which is cutting it pretty fine, in my view. […] Read More