Book lover paradise in Sarasota
Regular visitors here know I love books (did you notice the Hamlet quotation on my homepage?), but I don’t just love reading them — I also love the process of shopping for them. Few pleasures can match wandering the cramped alleys and navigating the towering stacks of an out-of-the-way independent bookstore with a sprawling collection of reasonably […]
Joseph Monninger’s Finding Somewhere
A horse about to be put down. Two girls decide to take him on a road trip to freedom. Finding Somewhere — a new book by Joseph Monninger, my fiction-writing professor at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. I remember reading one of his books back in, gosh, I guess it was 1992, and a line […]
Sideways in Sarasota
Thanks so much to everyone who’s posted comments on my blog, FB, sent emails and snail mail wishing me well in future writing. Some of you also asked about my past writing and where to read it … my book, Sideways in Sarasota, is one of the best ways to read my early columns — […]
Sense and the City: Signing off
Today’s column will be my last for Ticket. I’ve enjoyed writing in this space — sharing stories about everything from dads teaching their children how to skip stones across the water, charities and fundraising events, and women who put their titillating talent (and tassels) to the burlesque test, to pieces about local firefighters, nurses and […]
Correcting our correctional system: The Dhamma Brothers
It sounds like a fictional scenario: Take a handful of prisoners locked away for life in a violent, maximum-security Alabama prison and guide them through a 10-day, 100-hour meditation odyssey. But as the trailer for the film based on the story shows, the tale is very real. It’s also incredibly gripping, a tough look at […]
Sense and the City: Diane McFarlin will be missed
Having met Sarasota Herald-Tribune Publisher Diane McFarlin only once and then briefly — when we bumped into each other one night at a Ringling Town Hall lecture, and I learned that she was as warm and genuine up close and personal as she was elegant and beautiful from afar — I knew I wasn’t the best-qualified […]
Blinded by Sarasota’s LED Signs
I’m fed up with the ridiculous LED signs that are trivializing our environment, degrading the sensibility of our palm-tree-sunshine-lined streets, and obliterating our good sense with their garish obnoxiousness. (Can you tell where I stand on this issue?) Business that should know better — frequently medical and health-related offices — are throwing these signs up […]
Sarasota Blues Festival VIP Offering Doesn’t Fit
The Sarasota Blues and Music Festival is irking me with its $75 VIP tickets. VIP? In a parking lot across from Ed Smith Stadium? Whatever! Read my outrage at this week’s Sense and the City column in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Observer, Herald-Tribune alumnus releases debut novel
Surely you remember the name Roger Drouin. During his stint as the Sarasota Herald-Tribune‘s city hall reporter between 2007 and 2009, Drouin landed countless local stories on the front page of our daily — notching scoop after scoop. When he left the paper, it was to earn his MFA in the Florida Atlantic University creative […]
Sense and the City: At SMH, kindness is the cure
My mom recently underwent surgery at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, and the experience has made me reflect on the importance of kindness and care in helping folks recover. And so I turned those thoughts into this week’s Sense and the City, out in the Ticket today. Here’s a sample: It’s easy, when you arrive at a […]