I have been writing for as long as I can remember. As a teen, in particular, I wrote awful poetry and tried to emulate Bob Dylan. I started writing seriously in seminary at Boston University in 1972. There I was published for the first time—a series of poems in an alumni journal—work lost long ago. During my six year tenure as a parish minister, I became a disciplined writer, having to produce a sermon each week, both a literary and theological task. During this period I wrote many short ...
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I was jogging on the beach one autumn morning, the tide low and gray, when I saw an Asian woman standing barefoot in the sand, eyes set on the cloudy horizon. In her thirties, slender and youthful, she had dark hair in a thick braid and wore a light-brown dress that came down below her knees. I jogged by. I don’t think she noticed me. Her dreamy eyes seemed far, far away. I looked back one last time and took in her stoic gaze.


I wonder what she’s all about, I thought, and then I wrote a s...
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