Join Us for the Claytons’ Art and Book Sale – December 16 and 17, 2023
We’re having a studio art and book sale at our home/office/studio in Olympia, Washington on the weekend of December 16 and 17. We hope you will join us!
Alec Clayton
My Bout with Cancer – Part Nine
We’re closing in on a year now since I had cancer surgery. It was January 24. Then there were two plastic surgeries to reconstruct my nose with Dr. Sampson Lee, a cool guy with a well-deserved reputation for being one of the best. In a follow-up appointment, I told him that my eyes were burning, …
My Bout with Cancer – Part Eight
I think I’m almost done. First, Dr. Kim at Swedish Hospital removed the cancer from my nose. It was supposed to be an outpatient operation, in and out in a few hours. But once he got inside my nose he saw that the tumor was much larger than at first thought (about one and a …
Why?
Sometimes late at night or when I wake up in the morning a sentence or two unrelated to anything invades my brain. Often, it’s a line of dialogue with no context. Whatever it is, and from whatever recesses of my unconscious it arises, I then lay in bed for the longest time writing and re-writing …
Long Ago August
It was August 1955. Or maybe it was ’54, my memory is not perfect. But I’m going to go with ’55. We spent that entire summer in a rented house on a lake in Louisiana, fishing, swimming, waterskiing, and at night betting matchsticks on poker. Didn’t have a TV, paid no attention to the news. …
My Bout with Cancer – Part Seven
Ring, ring, ring. On the way from the radiation room to the front door there’s a big brass bell with a sign saying ring three times to announce when you’ve finished your final radiation treatment. Well, it’s not really a big bell, medium-sized maybe, and it might not really be brass. But I like to …
My Bout with Cancer – Part Six
I’m sitting in the “Fish Room” at Radiant Care in Lacey waiting for a nurse to appear and call out, “Alec” or more likely”John.” There seem to be somewhere between six and a dozen nurses, and I haven’t learned any of their names. They know mine because it’s written down as John with a note …
“My Sweet Lord,” Willie Ray is Locked In
by Alec Clayton I finally finished my latest novel, Locked In. It’s my eleventh novel. It has taken well over two years to finish writing it, for Gabi to finish editing it, and for me to complete a final re-write. Locked In is the story of a lifelong fight for justice and of romance and …
My Bout with Cancer – Part Five
I guess I live my life out loud, meaning I share personal information that many other people would not. Like these jottings about my bout with cancer. Shortly after my first surgery to remove the tumor, I told my friend Nikki—who has breast cancer and also lives her life out loud, who has shared on …
My Bout with Cancer – Part Four
The folks at Radiant Radiology, a part of Providence Regional Cancer System, are great. They answer questions and explain upcoming procedures patiently, thoroughly and clearly. After taking our wounded car to the body shop to get a repair estimate (see PART THREE), we took my wounded face to Radiant for a second consultation with Dr. …