The One

This story was given a staged reading by ‘Literally Speaking’ in 2005, and a slightly edited version was published in ‘Room’ literary magazine in 2008.

There was the one with the dark head of curly hair who sat behind her in sophomore Dickens seminar and scribbled notes that she could tell had nothing to do with what the teacher was saying, and when he eventually slipped one onto her desk one day as he walked out of class it turned out to be a very short story about a young woman with a long waterfall of brown hair, remarkably like her own. There was the one who played guitar in a rock band that covered only Grateful Dead songs, and would look out at her from the stage, catching and holding her eyes while he played in a long, trance-like stretch and who told her later that her braids just did him in.

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Someplace Other Than Here

This story was a finalist in Fiction Magazine’s Unsolicited competition, 2003.

When I asked him why he hadn’t talked to me, asked me for my phone number, he told me about the 6-second rule. His boss was scared of getting sued. Told the guys that they couldn’t look at any woman for more than six seconds. He’d let a guy work drunk before he’d let him stare at a girl going into a building they were working on. But he did look at me. Never for long. Just steady and frequently. For weeks, every time I drove in and got out of my car, I’d look up and see the bright blue of his eyes...

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Tina’s Island

This story won the Vermont Emerging Writers Contest in 1997

I’m watching an old Gilligan’s Island rerun when Mom yells at me from the kitchen, “Tina, I’m making a G&T. Would you like one?”

My mom has this idea that as long as she drinks with someone else, she’s not an alcoholic. She told me that once. Alcoholics are only people who drink before 5:00 in the evening or drink alone. I don’t drink much, but she only needs someone to share the first one of the day with her. She pretty much handles the rest of the night’s drinking on her own.

I’ve been through Batman & Robin, Lost in Space, the Adams Family, some public television show on fishing, “Catching the Big One.” And now, Gilligan’s getting into trouble. But that’s what it’s always like on this show. Gilligan gets everyone into trouble, and then gets everyone out of trouble, too.

Mom’s standing in the doorway. No drinks in her hand, just standing there, pulling at her fingers.

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Unraveling Anne -- An ignominious end can befall almost anyone, even a mother who twinkled among the bright lights of LA's hippie heyday.

This adaptation of the award-winning memoir, Unraveling Anne, appeared in the November, 2011 issue of the LA Times Magazine.

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The End of the Affair: What happens when it’s time to leave a much-loved, much-remodeled home?

Appeared in the Spring 2003 issue of House Beautiful Home Remodeling & Decorating

The worst moment of many bad moments renovating my 150-year-old farmhouse? The time I realized I could not get inside my home because every door and most windows were blocked by the detritus of bad remodeling decisions made by previous owners: beige vinyl siding, cheap storm windows, mocha colored carpet, vinyl flooring...

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Single Minded - Sorting Through the Strange Sociology of Going Solo

The following article appeared in the Spring 2001 Women’s Issue of Seven Days, Burlington, Vermont, and was syndicated to alternative newspapers around the country through AlterNet.

“When I was much younger, I had a vision of my adult self as married, with a home and family life. In my twenties, I got a husband, house, dogs, gardens, furniture, good jobs, a decent car. By the time I was 31, I also got a divorce...”

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Laurel Saville in India

“December 14: I’ve been reading Kipling tales of India from the turn of the century as well as contemporary Indian authors. Seems that the colonialists tried to use tradition itself as a means to pass on tradition. Others societies use food. Very specific ingredients, elaborate preparations, serving meals and sharing stories, while eating together. I’ll take the food route, any day. I had more incredibly vivid dreams last night. Crowds, fantastic animals, colorful bazaars, strange peoples and adventure straight from a Star Trek episode. I started to congratulate myself on the vividness of my imagination, but then remembered that hallucinogenic dreams are a not uncommon side effect of anti-malaria drugs. Oh well...”