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 …
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 …
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. …
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 …
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 …
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. …
My hair, where I have hair—a patch like a medieval monk’s tonsorial—was a madly matted yellow mess. The yellow comes from medicine during surgery and medicine infused tape. When I was finally able to take a shower, that got much of the yellow out. Now I can wash my head and get rid of some …
We got home from a day and a night in Overlake Hospital in Bellevue Sunday afternoon, the third hospital and fifth or sixth medical facility this year—the year is only two months old. Coincidentally, our three-year-old granddaughter who is far too young to understand, spent the same night in another hospital with Parainfluenza and Coronavirus …
“… I had bought a summer suit which I thought looked pretty nice, which had been altered for me, and which I decided to wear home. … the minute I stepped outside, two policemen grabbed me for hard questioning. Then they let me go with an apology, explaining that a man had just robbed a …
About forty years ago I read an article about Eudora Welty in which the writer praised her sense of place. That’s it! I thought. A sense of place. It needs to be a strong element in any fiction worth reading. Welty did it with accents, quirks of speech, and descriptions of houses, towns, the land …