Authors Electric

Mary Reinholz '70 West    The jobs I had as a kid and even later, as a young man don't exist anymore. I had no inkling I'd work on a newspaper or write books, or be in "media." My "big get" was getting a job. I started earning pocket money at age 10 delivering newspapers to home subscribers on de Luxe Schwinn I loved that sleek, red-and-black bike, with its whitewall balloon tires, shiny streamlined chrome fenders, built-in horn, head-and-tail lights, front-wheel shock-absorber and rack to carry the afternoon dailies I delivered to my afternoon paper's forty subscribers.  I became adepted at sailing fat copies of rubber-banded,  Hollywood Citizen News onto subscribers' front porches without breaking a window - most of the time.  Schwinns of that era were like our plush, chrome-laden, dreamboat, fintailed cars -  as stylish as they were unsafe, gas-guzzling, and impractical. I lusted after just a second-hand one that I could restore. To save up, ...

  Metropolis' Maria Futura comes to life, 1927 ... was the word. As I posted earlier, I'm amidst a third rewrite of my latest Frank Ritz noir Hollywood murder mystery. I had run into a wall about halfway through the novel, that draft the product of numerous revisions itself.  No matter. It dawned on me that my roadblock didn't originate ahead of me but back at the beginning of the process. I had gone with the big idea - the case of a famous, missing Hollywood prop that had led to murder - but had neglected Frank Ritz and his complicated personal life. I had made the assumption that readers knew him as well as did I. In the process, I neglected what is turning out to be the novel's most compelling stuff - not the case, nor a high-profile murder, nor the movie-biz clients, but a crisis in Frank's personal life involving his daughter Annie and his on-off lover and dogged reporter, Phyllis. So here goes. I offer this sample for your consideration:  -------------------...

   L.A. Times Newroom 1963, the day JFK was shot Once again, I dwell in the alternate history of a work to which I keep returning. Maybe it's a novel, maybe a novella, maybe a string of stories I'm trying to unravel. Meanwhile, what we call reality looks more and more like science fiction or a Borges reality. Indulging fatalism and its first cousin cynicism might be easier at my advanced age but for family. My concerns are both abstract — for humankind and our furry friends and real for the younger hopeful members of the mixed heritage and gender choice clan to which I belong. As I write this we await the momentary arrival of little Nora, who will be my fourth great grandchild, expected baby of my granddaughter Fiona Reynolds in San Francisco.  Granddaughter Fiona & mom Alicia    More than ever, I see us handing a shabby future to little Nora when we could have done — nay, we have to do — so much better. I always took the works of Margaret Atwood, William...