Authors Electric

  Tom Robbins died.  Oh, I didn't have any easy way to say it because there is no easy way to tell the world that your favorite author of all time has left you here without another book.  News Report Oh, don't even speak to me. I don't care if I am being dramatic. I cannot tell you how many rough patches in my life this odd man's odd books got me through. Nor can I adequately describe how he made me want to be a writer. I keep my laptop on a stand now, at the behest of my chiropractor, and I have Tom's photo on the stand, looking up at me from under my laptop. Telling me to be laid back, but to also write the thing. You can see me talking about his book Still Life With Woodpecker here . I've met some cool authors in my life: Ken Kesey, Kinky Friedman, Walter Mosley, Juan Felipe Herrera, but never Tom, my #1. And never my #2, which would have to be Raymond Chandler, but I think he was gone before I got here. If you haven't read Tom Robbins try what is probab...

I am a new blogger here at Authors Electric (welcome, me!) and I was going over and  over  what to write to you for my first post. So, you should  know  a teensy bit about me, because  why am I even here? One thing people find out about me fairly quickly is my tendency to be tangential. So let me tell you about  my mother’s friend, Nancy. Nancy worked as a telephone operator (Directory Assistance 411 in the USA) in Upper Darby, right on the edge of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. Nancy was married to Bud, a blue collar guy. My mom was "from the 50s." Nancy was probably "from the 40s," so she'd never learned to drive. Bud would drive her to work, or my mom (also a telephone operator) would. But sometimes it just didn't work out, and, finally, Bud said Nancy had to learn how to drive. Nancy was in her mid-fifties then. And she did learn how to drive, but she was terrified of making left turns, so she only turned right, meaning that she’d drive a...