...because non-Catholics need a pope, too

we are what we eat

"In art as in food, what we consume bears on what we become. The choices we make matter."

That's me quoting me, from an essay on empathy just published in Talking Writing.

I wish I were fully entitled to the moral high ground on this one, but hey, the first sentence of the essay is "Like most of us, I'm a hypocrite."

Thanks to TW editor-in-chief Martha Nichols for stellar editing, and to TW fiction editor David Cameron for setting it up.

ghost cars of valdes island

Abandoned vehicles. Uninhabited island. What's not to love?

I was there for my own reasons: severed human feet. One had washed ashore on Valdes, and I was writing a short story about them, and I wanted a ride out. To stand where the foot was found. To absorb the atmosphere, internalize the landscape so I could evoke it in fiction. I found a pirate boat willing to take me (motel manager pointed me to marina restaurant owner who pointed me to bartender who made a couple phone calls on my behalf). It was Mark the pirate boat captain who said, since we're out here, you need to see this.

Traces of the last inhabitants, 40, 50 years before. An eroded shed. A rusted crosscut saw. A half-dozen vehicles, abandoned where they'd died. Claimed by the landscape. Another story, for another time.