Originally published on Huffington Post. Last week, my husband and I got the sad news that our friend, artist Burton Chenet, was shot to death in his home by an intruder. His wife, Christine, sustained a serious injury when the gunman shattered her elbow with another shot before fleeing. The tragic incident took place in Turgeau, a residential area in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Although ours was not a very close relationship, I liked Burton a lot, kept in touch with him Read More…

Originally published on Huffington Post. “What? You and three other people?” That’s what a friend of mine said when I told him I went to see John Carter. And in fact, there were just about three people in the audience. And that’s a shame. What a waste. All that crazy money — $300 million to make and promote — all those creative people who worked their tails off, and the movie is derided as a “mega flop” by just about Read More…

If that title looks perfectly okay to you, you can stop reading right now. A friend of mine decided to create a line of T-shirts that lament this country’s woeful mangling of the English language. I think it’s a great idea. As a writer, I’m into words, and punctuation too. Ah, the vagaries of the misplaced, missing or underused comma; the overused exclamation and question marks — What the ????? And new permutations of words just because they look hip Read More…

Photograph by Hans Silvester from the book, Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa Originally posted on www.fiftyisthenew.com. My new novel, Saturday Comes—A Novel of Love and Vodou, is out, and I am the reigning queen of book autography. I am sitting behind a stack of books at a recent author event, happily writing friendly messages to Franceska and Tim, Samantha and other kind human beings, when a man named Chaz comes over, leans down very close to my face and Read More…

I became a member of Goodreads, a great site for people who love good books. As part of their author program, I am giving away ten copies of my new book, Saturday Comes–A Novel of Love and Vodou. If you would like to get one, click HERE. If you do get one, PLEASE! Be a pal and go to Amazon.com and Goodreads and leave a review. I would be very appreciative! (Promotion starts February 3, 2012).