My story, "Parted, not Separated," a 3,000-word short story summarizing much of my first book, Between Inca Walls, has been selected for publication in the SF-Peninsula chapter's 2023 Fault Zone anthology. This year's anthology titled, "Detachment," will be published in late fall or early winter, 2023.

From AAUW:

I've been getting some positive feedback from the excerpt I read at the Feb 18 CWC Peninsula meeting from Love in Any Language called "And Baby Makes Four", so I wanted to post it here:

I unwrapped pink diaper bags, pink onesies, and frilly pink dresses at the April 1971 baby showers thrown by the Hawthorne school faculty and the women in our UC student-housing unit. Those who doubted that I could choose the sex of my baby, thought impossible in 1970, gave me yellow blankets, sweaters, and booties. (I’d read a Life magazine article about how to conceive a girl. My husband loved the method.)

When birthing Tony, our first child, four years before, I’d been caught off guard by the pain. Then, my obstetrician had quickly administered a saddle block anesthetic. The painkiller deadened me to all feeling in my lower extremities. For days afterward, I had excruciating headaches every time I lifted my head. I didn’t want a pain-deadener with this second birth. I wanted to experience the pleasure of a natural birth, like so many women said they did in the ’70s. I enrolled in weekly evening Lamaze classes the month before my due date, and hoped for a painless, enjoyable childbirth.

Here's me speaking at the February monthly meeting of the California Writer's Club (San Francisco Peninsula chapter). Check out the latest CWC-SF Peninsula going's on in our Newsstand section, here.

The fast-spreading Omicron variant cancelled my trip to Morocco in December 2021, when the borders to that country were closed. So, my husband and I postponed our trip to the North African country until December 2022. Three months before we were due to fly from SFO to Casablanca via Paris, I fractured my right ankle on an easy walk around our Lake Elizabeth. I thought I might be destined to never see that country’s mosaics, taste their tajine meals, or ride their camels in the Sahara Desert.

I will read the chapter "And Baby Makes Four," from Love in Any Language at the February 18th  meeting of the CWC SF-Peninsula branch. This chapter tells about when I went into labor with my second child in a Lamaze Child birthing class.

The evening of  January 18th I introduced both of my books at a PowerPoint presentation called "Peace Corps Life in the Andes of Peru," to 60 participants at the Pleasant Hill chapter of the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

Feedback from one of the participants: "We thoroughly enjoyed your presentation and commend you on your service to the country." Believe me, the honor is mine.

I have a piece about memoir writing in the CWC (California Writers Club) Bulletin. It's on page 7.