Other writing in development

Jia Li, (working title) is the story of a rage-filled Chinese daughter, adopted by a well-meaning but uninformed suburban family in the Carmel Valley. When the family disintegrates, Jia Li is sent to live with a massage therapist who lives on a ridge in Big Sur in simple circumstances. The two face the Big Sur fire together.

I have been named winner of the Joanna Catherine Scott Novel Excerpt Prize in the National League of American Pen Women, Nob Hill branch Soul-Making Literary Competition, for my unfinished second novel, Jia Li. The Soul-Making Literary Competition is a national award that looks for original, freshly creative and finely crafted works that embrace all creative interpretations of English poet, John Keats' statement: "Some say the world is a vale of tears, I say it is a place of soul-making."

The Pale Surface of Things  took second place in the same award category in 2004.

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The Icon Writer (in early stages of research) is a sequel to The Pale Surface of Things. I’m exploring ideas of how to save a village (without resorting to making it a tourist destination and no longer a viable village) when the young men have have gone to the city for work and the population has dropped too low. I’m also researching the traditions of Greek Orthodox icon painting and of mentoring as a way of teaching the arts.