Scents Memory
Olfactory Memoirs focuses on scent-triggered memories. It was part of a project of the San Diego Foundation Creative Catalyst Fellowship Program.
The Wright Stuff (in the anthology Songs of Ourselves)
The editors were looking for diary entries, notes, stories, lists, etc. related to travel in the US. I sent them an excerpt from the diary I kept during my last trans-continental road trip in October, 2008. Because my spouse and I are both interested in Frank Lloyd Wright, we ended up visiting a number of his projects during the trip, from private residences in Oak Park outside Chicago to the Johnson Wax headquarters building in Racine, Wisconsin and his beloved Taliesin West near Scottsdale, Arizona.
Buy Songs of Ourselves on Amazon or read my chapter here…
Panic at Twenty-four Frames Per Second
Although this piece contains a dire warning, I wrote it with tongue firmly planted in cheek, and I hope you’ll read it that way. The story recalls my days working as a film projectionist while attending San Diego State University. I’m happy it found a home in the Summer/Fall issue of Lunch Ticket, a well-respected online literary magazine produced by students in the MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles.
Parking Signs/Outside the Pleasure Dome
The online journal Lime Hawk published this essay in January, 2015. It focuses on my 2013 diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease and the period immediately following it. I had a hard time writing this one, not least because I have quite a few friends who didn’t know about my illness, and therefore found out about it through reading this piece. I hope this essay illuminates some of the reasons why I’d been silent.
Twenty Questions
I wrote this lament for my sister, Rebecca, shortly after she died in 2012. It’s taken two years of revision and re-submission to find a place for it in Hippocampus Magazine, to whom I’m very grateful. For anyone who knew Rebecca, I hope this piece will remind you of her persistence, her spirit–all the things that were wonderful about her!
I H8 David Sedaris
A humorous take on what happened when I acted on what I thought was a completely original idea, only to discover that another more famous writer had already plumbed it. Published on the blog The Ink & Code on May 9, 2014.
There Are Still Empty Places in California
A rhapsody in the form of an essay, this piece draws its inspiration from the many driving vacations our family took when I and my siblings were young. Published in the Fall, 2013 issue of the online journal Red Savina Review.
Five Years and Four Months
An AIDS memoir about my relationship with Ralph Gomez, who died on December 7, 1990 at age 40. Published in the Spring, 2013 issue of the Canadian online journal Plenitude.
Little Red Bird
My partner, John, and I travelled to New Jersey in August, 2011 to visit his mother and father who were in separate long-term care facilities. This story, published in the December 2011 issue of the online journal Foliate Oak, is based on those visits.
The Twisting Path
This story was first published in the October, 2012 issue of the literary journal r.kv.r.y (read “recovery”), explores the emotional and physical stress of being swept up in the medical/industrial complex. I wrote in 2010, inspired by the experience of being diagnosed with prostate cancer (which was later cured through surgery). I’m very pleased that the story was published in r.kv.r.y; I think it’s one of the more carefully designed and edited online journals.
James Brega: What I Write Instead of Nothing 