One strong memory I have from childhood is lying on a sprawling branch of an ancient apple tree on my father’s farm in Pennsylvania. This branch was so wide that I could lie on it without falling off. I used to imagine that some loving entity was watching me there, in the shade, like a guardian angel, or a parent, or the tree itself…
See attached video for the rest of the story. On June 23, 2020, three storytellers told at Caffe Lena for the pandemic Stay at Home series.
Barbara Palumbo tells Nathaniel Hawthorn’s story “The Great Stone Face” and Frank Stockton’s story, “The Lady or the Tiger,” at the beginning.
My original story blended with norse creation mythology, “Speaking the Language of Trees,” starts at minute 27:40.
Finally, Mary Murphy rounds out the evening with a great “old haunted house story,” starts at minute 58:00.
My novel Blue Woman Burning was published by Emperor Books, an imprint of Red Penguin Books, in the fall of 2021: "In the cold descending breeze of the Altiplano between Chile and Bolivia, Fallon’s narcissistic mother bursts into flames before her family’s eyes. The inexplicable nature of their loss marks each family member in a different way."
Against the Grain, my latest novel, will be released on Earth Day 2022: “Against the Grain combines gorgeous poetry and romance with heart-stopping action, as the daughter of a rich CEO joins forces with a logger’s son to stop a huge lumber company from destroying an ancient redwood forest. The trees themselves become surprisingly powerful characters in this rich, multilayered novel. After reading Against the Grain, you’ll never look at a tree in the same way again,” says Matt Witten, bestselling author of The Necklace.
My book of short stories, Strange Appetites, won the Adirondack Center for Writing People's Choice Award.
I love all that is absurd, odd, and beautiful.
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