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“Because I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep…”

This excerpt from a Robert Frost poem, a favorite of mine from long ago, is the central theme of the novel “Miles to Go.”

The story spans more than thirty years and highlights a friendship connection between two women who meet in college, protest the radical causes of the sixties and seventies, and discover that the journey to adulthood is riddled with many obstacles—ruts in the road, if you will—that prevent the realization of… Continue

Through the slatted blinds I could feel the persistent slivers of sun, reminding me that I hadn’t croaked after all. On a scale of one to ten, I’d surely racked up a “fourteen” in my efforts to achieve Nirvana. But, as always, in my quest for the ultimate high, I’d gone too far, earning points instead for “most idiotic” or, at the very least, “self-destructive ass of the century.”


Groaning at the nagging reminders of the night before, I thanked the gods for the blessed miracle of the blackout,… Continue

When I opened to the front page of my local newspaper the other day, the headlines screamed at me: BOY DIES AFTER SEVERE BEATING!


Subsequent days follow with more headlines: OFFICIALS WERE WARNED, CPS IS INVESTIGATED, and finally, on the front page of the Local & State section, a lesser headline: IF OUTRAGE FADES AGAIN, KIDS WILL KEEP DYING.


All of this is a reminder of the familiar patterns of my life, back when I was a social worker with Child Welfare Services in this Central Valley ci… Continue