JOURNALISM

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Lifestyles, Historical Interest

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​"Vous sentez le jasmin: Paris in the Soul." Panorama, the Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature. Paris: issue 15, August 2025. Online. 

On your first day in Paris, age nineteen, a poet steps into your path. ​

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"Little Mermaids." Twin Flame Literary, II. September 2025.

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​"Light, Fantastic, Gossamer: Solstice observations of things iridescent, weightless, winged, and airy." Enchanted Living, The Gossamer Issue, Summer 2025.

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"When Women Painted the Renaissance ... they took back the gaze, the nude, and the future." Enchanted Living, the Renaissance issue, Winter 2024.

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​"The Charismatic Mushroom: Far-flung webs of fantastic fungi might change your mind about minds ... just ask Alice." Enchanted Living, The Mushroom Issue, Spring 2025.

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"Sylvie Facon’s Couturier Book Dresses – Volumes of Time’s Passing." Enchanted Living 66, Spring 2024.

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"A Love Letter to Ladies Accused of Witchcraft." Enchanted Living, fall 2022. Print.

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"Your Lover, the Sea Monster." Mythological monsters--which one is your narcissist, love-bomber, or helpmeet?  Enchanted Living, summer 2022. Print.

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"Before the Ball: How Our Girl Got Ready." Enchanted

Living, Decadence, winter 2021. Beauty preparations of the Belle Epoque.​​

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“Know Your Romantic Man.” A light look at love with writers and painters of the Romantic Movement. Enchanted Living, winter 2020. Print.

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"Taking Down the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia." Uncredited piece on the removal of the Confederate monuments in the Southern capital. Broad Street Magazine, June 11, 2020.

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“A Celebration of the Modern Mermaid.” On what mermaids mean for our current moment in feminist culture. Enchanted Living, March 2020, in print and online. 

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Health & Living with Disabilities

 

“How I Learned to Soften My Pain and Give Vulvodynia a Break.” In Folks, January 2021. While my gynecologists dismissed my experience, I spent years looking for relief from my constant irritation and pain.

            

“Dollhouse Artisans Restore Health One Tiny Room at a Time.” Folks, November 27, 2020. Crafting, particularly miniatures, helps hobbyists and master artists cope with a variety of health issues. 

 

“A Mermaid Saved My Brain.” After a traumatic brain injury, a fairy tale I told myself in the dark helped lead me back into the world. Folks, 9 September 2020. 

 

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On Writing

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"Instead of Setting a Goal, Try a Writing Dare." Guest post on Jane Friedman's writing and editing blog.

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“Four Reasons to Spend Time with ‘Bad’ Books.” Thousand-word guest post on Jane

Friedman’s writing and editing blog, 3 March 2020. 

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"Same Place, Same Time: On Coincidence and What Was Meant to Be." From Writers Ask.

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Pop Culture

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“My Life in Pantyhose.”  Writers on the Job, November 2016.  Online and in print (From My Life in Pantyhose to My Life in Spandex, Servinghouse Books), 11,000 words. 

 

“Watch Mattel Market Their Dream Girl—and a Gun for the Boys.”  Broad Street online, fall 2016.  

 

“Making Friends with Midge:  Your BFF and Barbie’s.” Broad Street, 1.1, summer 2013. Female friendship in America as articulated through doll play with Barbie’s oft-forgotten goofy best friend.  Pushcart Prize Special mention, volume XXXIX (2014). 

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 “Clean Porn:  The Visual Aesthetics of Hygiene, Hot Sex, and Hair Removal.”  In Mardia Bishop and Ann Hall, eds.  Pop(Porn):  The Proliferation of Pornography in Popular Culture. Westport, CT:  Praeger/Greenwood Publishers, 2007.  137-154.

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Book Reviews

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Includes 36 written for The New York Times Book Review, covering authors such as Jeanette Winterson, Emma Donoghue, and Audrey Niffenegger.

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Other venues: The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi, East Bay Express (Oakland).

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A few samples with links here:

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• “Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s Games with Childhood,” a review-essay in Rain Taxi

• “Eager Magic: Half, by the Lake, Seven-Day, Or Not?” In Rain Taxi's Print Edition, Vol. 22 No. 1, Spring 2017 (#85), pp. 29-33.

• “She, Robot”: review of Jeanette Winterson’s Stone Gods in The New York Times Book Review

• “Twin Powers”: review of Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry in The New York Times Book Review

• “Fallen Angels”: review of Danielle Trussoni’s Angelology in The New York Times Book Review

• "Livin' la Vida Local":  review of Rachel Kushner's Telex from Cuba in The New York Times Book Review

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Encyclopedia Entries

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“American Beauty,” “The Sopranos,” “Sex and the City,” “Waxing,” “Tyra Banks,” “Cher.”  Six new reference articles in St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Sara and Tom Pendergast, eds.  Michigan:  St. James Press, 2012.

Revised entry on “Barbie” for another author.

 

“Mary Poppins,” “Supermodels,” “Zoos,” “Abortion,” “Naomi Campbell,” “Kate Moss.”  Six reference articles in St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Sara and Tom Pendergast, eds.  Michigan:  St. James Press, 2000.  

All entries updated by me for new edition, 2012.

 

 

Selected Stories (Fiction)

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"Queen, Cur, Changeling." Eclectica vol 29, no 4, October 2025. In the 1700s, Denmark's Queen Caroline Mathilde has a difficult marriage and a legendary political love affair; fifty years later, Hans Christian Andersen has a personal stake in her story.

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"Rob the Bank, Butter the Kitchen," reprinted in Professor Feiff's Trans-Dimensional Travelogue anthology, JayHenge Books, December 2025. Print and e-book.

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“Queen’s Catte.” Hunger Mountain #31, Winter 2025. Winner of the Howard Frank Mosher Prize

for Short Fiction.

(The link takes you to all fiction offerings; click on “Queen's Catte” to read a bit about Mary, Queen of Scots, her embroideries, and her escape plan.)

 

“The Lava, the Monsters, the Mechanics of the End.” Gargoyle Online #10, spring 2025. 

Mostly true stuff about having a TBI that just won't quit.

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“Civilization / Flight Path.” Époque Press é-zine. March 2025. Body dysmorphia in a tiny apartment plagued by infernal noise.

“Marsoupiel.” Sequestrum, Summer 2024. Little Lizzie Behren is missing, which complicates the narrator's summer fling with an old friend.

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“Persephone, My Dear, Listen to Your Mother Now...” Enchanted Living #62, Spring 2023. Print and online.

“As Deep as the Sky, as Wide as the Night.” Enchanted Living #58, Spring 2022. Print.

 

“You Love Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis).” Gargoyle. Winter 2020. Print: 127-131.

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“We Become Nothing.” The Saturday Evening Post, December 4, 2020.

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“Rob the Bank, Butter the Kitchen.” Pacifica Literary Review, Fall 2020. 

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 “A Spoon Will Catch the Dark Girls’ Pain.” Gemini Magazine. Annual Short Fiction Prize winner. About the invention of the speculum by J. Marian Sims and his experiments on enslaved women.

      ** Site under re-construction. 

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“Fourteen Shakes the Baby.”  Cincinnati Review 13.1, June 2016: 183-195. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Print.

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“Fourteen Shakes the Baby,” reprint.  Electric Literature, Recommended reading, March 8, 2017. Online.

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“A Collection of Rarities and Originals.” Quarterly West,  Winter/spring 2011.

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“The Bed of Imaginary Loves.”  The Journal 32.2 (fiction contest winner).  Fall 2008: 91-112.

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“Underneath It All, There’s Carpeting.” On family and The Price Is Right. Los Angeles Review, Fall 2007.

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“Shooting Snakes.”  Prairie Schooner (winter 2005):  135-152.

 

 

CONSULTING

 

Barron’s Educational Publishing, untitled collection of myths:  evaluated manuscripts for historical accuracy, diversity, and literary structure.  June 2012.

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Barron’s Educational Publishing, untitled collection of fairy tales:  evaluated manuscript for historical accuracy and literary structure.  January 2012.

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Expert Witness:  Richmond District Attorney, expert on pedophilia in literature and First Amendment values, case name to remain confidential.  October 2005.

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