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Would love to see you there!

Photo credit: Kevin Floerke

New story in print for the first time in a looonnng time

I am happy to say that I had a story published in The Stonecoast Review, Issue 8. It’s a long short story, so settle in with a cup of tea or a long subway ride.

To read the story, titled “Surfacing: Three Voices,” online, click here.

It’s also being published in print! To order a paper copy, click here.

I wrote a rough draft of this story and did initial research back in 2003-4, so it’s quite satisfying to see it finally out in the world. It’s been through many drafts, submissions & rejections since then. The story is historical fiction set in 1928 California, centered around the collapse of the St. Francis Dam, a fascinating but relatively unknown event in the history of my home state. I grew up 100 miles from the site of the dam collapse and never knew about it until I was in my late 20s.

A haunting image of what remained of the dam after the collapse

And on a much lighter note, click here to read the parenting humor piece I had published earlier this year: “How to Sleep Train Your Parents: What Every Child Should Know”

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I’d love to hear your comments on the story! To comment, click here & scroll down.

Emry putting himself to bed on the couch, November 2016

I’ve written a lot about sleep over the years. When I recently went back and read old posts, I have to admit I actually shuddered. The sleep situation in our house was that dire. For many years.

Thankfully, over the last four years, as Elan’s sleep apnea has been successfully treated and Emry has gotten older, sleep is no longer the limiting factor in our lives. Well, at least not most nights. And not usually because of the kids.

But I remember so clearly the desperation of that particular kind of up-four-times-every-night exhaustion. When I look back, I have a lot of compassion for myself, for Mikhail, and for Elan. Parenting takes a lot of internal resources, and when you’re chronically exhausted, it becomes very difficult to summon those resources. I still remember the incredible sense of relief that flooded me when the sleep specialist looked at my Excel spreadsheets of Elan’s sleep and said to me, “this is not normal, it is not your fault, and we can make it better.”

The other night, Elan was congested from a cold, and he had a night terror, the first in many years. I had already scheduled an appointment with the sleep center, our first in four years, because he’s been complaining of not sleeping well lately. Hopefully we will find that his apnea is still well controlled. But for all our sakes, I don’t want to turn a blind eye to sleep troubles, even if they present differently at age 10 than they did at age 5.

To read more about diagnosing my son’s sleep disorder, how we treated it, and the emotional processes behind it all, look here (posts in reverse chronological order).

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