Category: about me

A Personal Obituary for My Dad, Lee A. Goodin, February 5, 1940-August 19, 2018

My dad, Lee A. Goodin, passed away into other realms on Sunday. He’d been fighting so many illnesses for several years, and yet I hadn’t seen the cardiac arrest coming. Somehow, I thought I’d have warning. Yet he had given me warning. Earlier this summer, he told me he’d decided to stop aggressive care for the infections that riddled his… Read more

My Pitch Video and Application for the Holman Prize for Blind Ambition 2018

I learned about the Holman Prize from my Friend Laurie Rubin last year, but did not have the time, nor a clear project to pitch, but this year I was ready and waiting! I managed to talk Alabaster into being my videographer, and we learned so much in the filming and editing of this little video, that I’m pleased to… Read more

Origins of “Sludge” in Lady Mary Wroth and Life, Essay 13 of #52essays2017

Almost exactly ten years ago, I had an unfortunate lapse in judgement of the sexual variety, which had at least one terrible consequence and one pretty good one: The terrible shall remain my secret, but the good I happily claim, namely, a song called Sludge, destined for my band gutter & spine. At that time, playing drums and singing in… Read more

Mapping & Mixing the Senses at the Mall of America, Essay 8 of #52essays2017

This is my answer to the Mall of America Writer-in-Residence application question “What would you like to write about during your writer residency? ” which doubles as my #52essays2017, written with all four senses and remembered sight, offering this busy week of state and house-hopping. I will write about beauty with all four senses and remembered sight. What is beautiful… Read more

Adulterated Rose or, The Smell of Regrettable Youth, Essay 7 of #52essays2017

The guy with the hard metal name was beautiful in my degenerate eye. Beautiful with a girlfriend. And a Volkswagen bus. This was around the time of the earthquake of ’89, when the influences of flower power still loomed large in San Francisco. I’d been pining for so long and then he said they’d broken up. We climbed into his… Read more

1984: Late to the Party Again, Essay 6 of #52essays2017

In the year 1984, I was in sixth grade, a scholarship child in a private girl school. The eighth graders were reading George Orwell’s 1984 and had plastered the walls with images of our headmistress that read, “Big Sister is Watching YOU.” We didn’t know what it meant, but we understood that it was witty and smart and that that… Read more