My grandpa, Irving Katuna, was born on January 12, 1929 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It was a Saturday, and it was cold. A light dusting of snow passed through Pennsylvania the previous night and the temperature stayed just above freezing the day he was born. I'm not sure how many of his eleven older siblings were… Continue reading In memory of Irving Katuna
It’s been a long, long time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsPBNcUw-jA A year or so before the pandemic, which would be about two years before today, I took singing lessons in the "piano room" at our house. We called it the piano room because it's where we put my grandmother's piano. This was a behemoth of a piano -- a beautiful black seven-foot long Baldwin… Continue reading It’s been a long, long time
Welcome letter to my search marketing class
I'm teaching my first community college course in a couple of months. It's exciting. It's intimidating. It's an incredible amount of prep work, since it's completely online, so it's tiring too. However, I'm already feeling proud of this course despite being nowhere close to ready. The online course I took at DVC about teaching an… Continue reading Welcome letter to my search marketing class
Read Write Play: 2020
In a normal year I would have posted my RWP summaries every quarter, as I've done since launching this blog in its current form in 2018. However, this is no ordinary year and my reading, writing, and playing schedule got tossed about as one might expect amidst a global pandemic and prolonged school shutdowns. Thus,… Continue reading Read Write Play: 2020
A new routine
By Day It starts at about 5:30am. My wife gets out of bed first, her iPhone flashlight leading her way down the hallway. I stretch and look out the window, a soft gray backdrop against the silhouettes of large oak and bay trunks. The sun won't rise for another hour. I lie awake for ten… Continue reading A new routine
On community
This post has been in draft form for a long time. On this Sunday morning, I'm reminded that I have a natural park in my backyard, a resort-like setting, and a 16-inch 2019 MacBook Pro to warm my lap as I type. What could be better than to spoil this moment by writing about politics?… Continue reading On community
I’m now an adjunct!
Last October, a professor in the business department at Diablo Valley College (DVC) asked me if I would apply to teach part-time in a new digital marketing certificate program. It was an easy decision; of course I would. I'd been volunteering at DVC since late 2018, speaking in classes and helping with pitch competitions. I… Continue reading I’m now an adjunct!
A one-hour brain dump
It's almost 9:30pm on a Sunday night. I haven't posted here in about a month. Tonight, for the first time in a while, I feel like blogging. So I'm going to write for an hour, straight through with very minimal editing, and wrap up at about 10:30pm. It's now the end of September. The statewide… Continue reading A one-hour brain dump
Three early observations about writing a novel
I'll state the obvious first: it actually is as hard as you think. When I began this process around around this time last year, I told myself not to overthink it. I was going to write a novel, simple as that. I wasn't going to agonize over plot lines and details. I wasn't going to… Continue reading Three early observations about writing a novel
Origin story of my protagonist’s wife
Here's the result of another exercise. My protagonist's wife, Jo, will play a big role in the novel and I needed to figure out what she stands for. The first thing she noticed was the smell. It was dusty and sweet, like a rotting peach. She yawned as the staff ushered her to the front… Continue reading Origin story of my protagonist’s wife