Author: Dan White

“Have you cracked the parenting code for how to turn your kids into little angels who share toys and play on their own for hours? Have you battled the Tiger Mom who lives next door and won? Do you have some special insight about raising well-adjusted kids, but need an audience to share it with? Then don’t miss the writer Amy Ettinger’s upcoming class on this thorny topic, entitled “Diapers, Sleep Deprivation and Dating Daughters.”  The class is starting to fill up — and right now, Amy is getting heaps of publicity and great feedback for her recent, button-pushing story in the Huffington Post, explaining why she is raising our daughter to be a ‘slacker’ (note the strategically placed square quotation marks). Expect to hear some no-holds-barred juicy insider tidbits about parent-lit and the writing life, and get great feedback about your own writings in this intensive course. Here is…

My God. Has the time come around so quickly? Is it time for me to gear up, for the thousandth time, and head out to the Santa Cruz Fungus Fair? My eyes bugged out when I realized that the fair is now in its 39th year! That means 19 years have passed since I first set foot in this festival dedicated entirely to fungus. That year I went to an event called “Fungal Favorites: A Taste Test” and watched bearded, Guatemalan-sweater-wearing locals manhandle, squeeze and even sniff such fungi as the “big laughing mushroom,” the “insidious gomphidius,” the “sheep’s head floccularia,” the “cute conic waxy cap” along with the “poison pie” and the “cloudy clitocybe.” As I recall, some of the edible mushrooms had less-than-edible-sounding descriptions. Take, for instance, the ‘delicious milk cap,” which is “thought to be more delicious by Europeans than Americans. This sturdy orange mushroom becomes slimy…

Thanks for checking this every day, even though I haven’t put an update on here for a while. Check back for my New Year’s resolution, and news of my recent trip to a remote desert in Southern Calfornia, where I stumbled, unexpectedly, on various scenes from The Cactus Eaters (and stumbled into the book itself! Crazy. I wasn’t even thinking about the book in any way, shape or form during this trip and yet I kept colliding with it. It was like being caught up in a wormhole through time.) I hope you are doing well and resting up after your long, crazy holiday celebrations. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

. I just found out that this month’s Memoir Journal, featuring this arresting cover photograph and a Wild interview with Cheryl Strayed, includes a brand-new (and as it turns out, very positive) review of my book, The Cactus Eaters. It’s nice to find out that reviews continue to trickle in at this late hour, especially now that I’ve settled down, bought myself a CPAP, and stopped all my adrenalized wanderings and pulse-pounding adventures at least for the time being. Unless you include  going to the corner store and attempting to buy organic prunes without getting mugged by some idiot. See entry below. Addendum to this blog posting: I finally read the review. They loved The Cactus Eaters, and described it as a companion to Wild. One particular line in the review made me gasp when I read it, but I’ve decided to just let you read the review for yourself…

             I’m still stewing about that prune incident, and I’ll have more to say about it soon. In the meantime, here are some links and other readings for you to consider, especially if you’re new to this blog. Here is a new story about Catamaran Literary Reader, which employs me as contributing editor, and another recent news report.  Here are links and uncensored editorial reviews about my first book, The Cactus Eaters, which is a true story.  I have gone ahead and republished and updated The Cactus Eaters FAQ. Also, here is story about my unfortunate run-in with the people at the Pain Quotidian bakery. Here is a podcast of my Catamaran talk with TC Boyle.  And here is a blog post about my neighbor, who wants his housemates to touch him on the knee. By the way, I used to have a whole bunch of Catamaran…

Alternate title: “Some idiot just tried to mug me at the Food Bin” You won’t believe this. On Sunday at 1:30 p.m, I was set upon by a loud, anti-Semitic, near-toothless mugger, right in the middle of a health food store. To be precise, he tried to mug me in front of the shriveled apricots. That afternoon, I stopped by the Food Bin & Herb Room (you know this place? In Santa Cruz, California? It’s this endearing if dark and dingy little throwback of an organic food store with “like, dude” cashiers and interesting produce. ) I stopped there to get some dehydrated plums. They have really good ones there, for some reason, and just as I was loading up my little plastic bag, I saw this guy behind me with only four teeth, in the lower part of his jaw. He was probably in his early 50s with a smeary…

                                                   photo by Scott Rappaport I just spoke with Don on Tuesday afternoon at some length. During our phone conversation,  we talked about the importance of writing and composition courses and how they teach students to engage not only with the academy but with the wider world. I’ve taught composition at San Jose State and Columbia, but I’ve rarely met a professor who articulated the goals and potentials of writing so elegantly. He will be missed. The full story is right here, and here is a lively discussion between Professor Rothman and his old friend and colleague Herman Blake. If you would like to hear about Don Rothman in his own words, here is a link to his website. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Just the other day I met an author I’ve admired for a long while, Ann Packer, who wrote a lovely appreciation of the Capitola Book Cafe. Her essay appears in a newly released anthology, My Bookstore, in which more than 75 authors pen tributes to their favorite booksellers. Someone was kind enough to videotape the entire “Our Bookstore” presentation at the Book Cafe, highlighting the work of  several writers who spend lots of time at the Book Cafe, including me. As far as I know, it is the only video of me reading anything anywhere. Check in later this week — I’ll try to get that link up on the blog just as soon as I am able. And thank you for the latest round of messages about the “Shoebox Man” essay in P & W.  I appreciate each and every one of your emails. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Thanks to the generous readers who let me know about this lovely article about Catamaran in the Santa Cruz Patch and another one about Peggy Townsend’s recent publishing triumph, as written by Christa Martin in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. And thanks for the kind mentions of my work in these stories.  I truly appreciate it. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

“Old age isn’t a battle: old age is a massacre.” So said Philip Roth, but Leonard Cohen is not about to concede defeat. There was something graceful and defiant about that magisterial voice, the dancing, the sexual posturing.  He made every song, even the ones that referred to the inevitability of death and decay, boom out through the HP Pavillion last night, and when he blessed the audience at the end, hoping for safety and peace for those with families, and those who found themselves alone, he added a lovely touch of high holidays to the proceedings.  The man is 78, and he often referred to his advanced years in a funny, rueful way: My friends are gone And my hair is grey I ache in the places where I used to play.  And yet he addressed the audience, sang his songs and recited “A Thousand Kisses Deep” with such…