This site is for my fiction and thoughts on literature. Essays with radical and unique perspectives on certain events in our history, along with a short biography of silent daredevil actress Helen Holmes, my great-grandmother, can be found at www.necessarystorms.com

My novel The Fire Bell Strikes at Midnight was published by Bloodhound Books on October 22, 2024. Select “Books” tab above for more information.

I’m a sixth-generation northern Californian whose life has been characterized by reading, writing, and rebellion. I learned to read by age five and wrote my first story at age seven. My first political action was organizing a walkout in sixth grade over the restrictive girls’ dress code. (We won.) Love of rock and roll and baseball put lie to the racist ideology of the times, leading to clashes with my Teamster father, the high school principal, and other small-minded small town bigots. My escape to Los Angeles led to a series of tedious, ethically appalling minimum wage jobs. I turned to petty crime and the strip club, until rescued by friends in the American Indian Movement and La Raza. I was 18 and ready for revolution, and lit out for San Francisco.

Delighted to find the Haight was in 1971 still the epicenter of political and lifestyle rebellions, I dove in, joining the radical wing of the women’s movement; our goal was to tear down the system, not demand to be part of it. Next step: communal living and radical activism — not the kind graced by foundation grants or government contracts. Fighting evictions, opposing police brutality, creating ways for street people to survive while helping the community, putting on rock and roll concerts in the park, and exposing and challenging government officials do not, sadly, result in appreciation from the power structure. For my efforts I’ve been jailed, evicted, shot, beaten by police, impoverished, and slandered.

Ultimately we lost the battle against gentrification of San Francisco. Neighborhoods have been turned into shopping districts; Haight Street is now a counterculture Disneyland.

Decades of daily crises took their toll on me, as did the pitfalls of aging and the absurdly high cost of living in the Bay Area. These days I’m not an activist and no longer live in California.

The life of a committed radical is long on action but woefully short on time and almost entirely lacking in the quiet and solitude conducive to creating art. But my friends and I understood the power of literature and devoted ourselves to reading, analyzing, and debating great works. It was an education as deep as any university could offer.

From the 1970s through the 1990s I wrote for and edited several community periodicals; wrote articles for a journal of California history; and never gave up my love of writing fiction. Linked above is a story I wrote in 1978, “Just Cause,” which drew on my experiences both as a tenant battling with landlords and an organizer helping other tenants fight evictions.

All photos taken while hiking in the Bay Area. Top row: Golden Gate Bridge from Marin Headlands; poppies and the Pacific Ocean, Coastal Trail, Mount Tamalpais; Sleepy Hollow Open Space, Terra Linda, with foggy San Francisco on the horizon; Tennessee Valley beach, near Mill Valley, Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Bottom row: Blithedale Ridge looking toward Mt. Tam, Mill Valley; Sonoma vineyard; Sunol Regional Wilderness; iconic California oak tree and wild mustard in Shell Ridge Open Space, Walnut Creek.