After the stories in the Sentinel and Good Times, many people ordered my book from Bookshop Santa Cruz, but none of them arrived. So the other day I dropped off my remaining copies of A Circle Outside. I can’t even say this is a dream come true. It’s bizarre to see a radical feminist novel in print at all and being sold at Bookshop.
In recent decades radical feminism was ignored and even heretical. Maybe understanding that the root of oppression is that every man thinks he is entitled to a slave.
I was in the Bay Area about three weeks. The first event was at the Berkeley Alembic.
This is the interview Sam Webster and I did there.
My friends ask me what I think of the changes in downtown Santa Cruz. I’m ok with it. Lower Pacific is a perfect place to live.
These post-earthquake buildings were hated in their day too.
I’m not sorry to see the Metro Center gone either. In it’s day, it wa an improvement, with its shops and restrooms and shelter from the rain. Now the Metro will be where people live.
Roz Spafford’s interview with me in the Good Times was a thrill.
A friend took me to breakfast at O’Neil’s in the Dream Inn. Still the best view on Monterey Bay.
No change here:
Or Cowell’s beach. That’s an egret standing there waiting for breakfast.
I met up with Roz Spafford at Chocolate, which has the same menu I’ve always loved.
Another view of post-earthquake buildings looking well.
On Sunday March 22, Coleen Douglas, Irene Reti and I did our show, “Wonder and Awe in the Redwoods.” It was everything I hoped it would be. We will put out a little movie of it. We’d like to do it again in a better venue.
A few days later, a friend and I had a San Francisco day, concluding with my event at Fabulosa Books in the Castro.
The last Santa Cruz event was at the lovely new Felton Library.
I forgot to take pictures. We sat out on the patio. A woman from Ireland came, and wanted to know what surprises me the most about Ireland. I said one thing is that it is “bigger on the inside.” Americans often rent a car in Dublin and drive around it in a week. I suggest picking one city, like Cork or Sligo, and take day trips from there. Every field has a name, every holy well a miracle, every mountain a folk tale. The other thing is that in Ireland, nothing is as it seems.
I spent a few days with my family in Fresno, so like Fresnans we left town.
On the way to Grant Grove in Kings Canyon Park, I grabbed some snax only found in America.
The Big Trees are not too far away from my Dad’s house. On that day, the Sierras were in a cloud.
This is me and my dad, age 90.
The last gig was at Alibi Bookshop in Vallejo.
Karen Finley, the owner, apologized for the power being out, but I told her I didn’t need anything but an audience.
I recommend writing a novel and then speaking about it in public to strangers. Can’t wait to do it again.
