The Pressure Cooker
The Pressure Cooker: When Captain Leff arrived at Udorn Royal Thai Air Base in the summer of 1969, one may have…
Author
Bombs Away
Bombs Away: Fred Branfman emerged from the jungles of Laos carrying a heavy load. He wasn’t weighed-down with…
Healthcare’s Invisible Glue
I once had the opportunity of developing intimate relationships with people of all ages and from all walks of life
Islam, Peace and Prison
Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, while talking on Meet the Press about President Obama’s faith being…
Ashita (Tomorrow)
Toward the end of my academic studies I began to obediently panic about my future
Take it Like a Man
“Be strong.” “Bear up to pain.” “Be sexually potent.” “Provide for others.” “Endure.” “Don’t give in.” “Compete and…
Hazel Johnson – Environmental Shero
It started with her husband. Hazel Johnson’s sweetheart of seventeen years died an early death from lung cancer.
Where Did Our Sex Life Go?
When your newborn is literally sucking the energy from you twenty-four hours a day, will the energy to make love…
Our Children’s Lives and Losses
Adults can be just as scared of death as children and are often unsure what to do or say
Adoption: It’s About Time!
There are thousands of children, of all ages, waiting for adoption in the U.S.
Screaming Silence
There was screaming, crunching, steel on steel, cracking concrete, electric sparks and explosions
Child of the Holocaust
Auschwitz. The word is synonymous with death, loss, murder and extermination, the worst barbarism that can be…
Money And Sex Can’t Buy It
Remember what brought you together and attracted you in the beginning. Think about your deepest intentions.
Mind Full Of Sex
“Sex, sex, sex.” My wife grinned at me with a bemused expression of wonderment.
Almost Pregnant and Almost Vegan
I’m “almost” vegan, is like saying I’m a “little” pregnant, but there is a complex history to this...
The Round House
I usually only review books for The New York Journal of Books and tend to not make the effort to share what I am…
From Story To Script To Screen
From Story To Script To Screen
The story, as seen at this time. So close and yet so far and so far and yet so…
Every Instinct
From Saint Catherine’s Baby – Stories.
A warm breeze squeezed through the holes in the window screen of the small…
Don’t Die!
I fell in love with Robin the first day we met. She was playing her role, as a recently admitted hospice patient,…
A Rwandan Folk Tale
At one time, all of the children in this book lived on the streets of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Their parents…
Come Back Harvey
Tale from children's story collection Solar Girl and Lunar Boy by Gabriel Constans. Harvey thinks the grass is…
A Bold Love
A Bold Love: My sister Joanne had come, for respite, from our hometown of Modesto, a land-locked metropolis…
The Nicholas Green Story
The Nicholas Green Story: Excerpt from Don’t Just Sit There, Do Something! - Grief’s Wake Up Call by Gabriel…
Land Minds
Saint Catherine’s Baby – Stories (Excerpt) by Gabriel Constans He was savagely independent, having lived in the…
Le Ly Hayslip’s Ancestors
Excerpt from Don’t Just Sit There, Do Something! Grief’s Wake Up Call. Conversations with Gabriel Constans.As a…
Hiranya’s Tongue
Saint Catherine’s Baby – Stories - Excerpt
“I was pregnant with words from the day of my birth. They seep through…
Get Over It!
From Good Grief: Love, Loss and Laughter (Excerpt)
“What are you so upset about? It was only your ex-husband.”…
Gato and Gakuru
Excerpt from The Skin of Lions: Rwandan Folk Tales (as told by the children at ROP Center for Street Children.
By…
Dressed In Black
Excerpt from Saint Catherine’s Baby – Stories. Stephanie came every day. She came without presumptions, ulterior…
A Literary Seduction
Catching sight of it across the room,
pushing desks and chairs aside, I circled the stacks slowly,
edging…
Dying to Read About Death?
Excerpt from Good Grief: Love, Loss and Laughter. How much information about dying, death and grief can we…
Novel Excerpt: Buddha’s Wife
Excerpt from novel Buddha’s Wife. Told in the first person by Yasodhara who has left the order and is dying.…
Courage Inside Walls
Went to maximum security prison yesterday for the weekly group. Only there for about 3 hours, but time seemed…
Luscious Chocolate
Luscious Chocolate and Chocolate Consumption
The chocolate industry is an $8 billion-a-year business. The United…
Review: Traveling With Pomegranates
A mother and daughter travel to Greece, Turkey, France and home to South Carolina and provide their respective…
His Mother’s Arms
The squeaking bicycle wheels turned with mechanical persistence, as Jon pumped triumphantly across the neighborhood…
Watch Your Ass and Testify
Excerpt from Paging Dr. Leff: Pride, Patriotism & Protest.
In the midst of his conflicts on base, Dr. Leff…
Falling On High
“Tony! I need the hammer!” - “What?!” Tony yelled back, as he poured another bucket of hot tar on the smoldering…
A Good Book
“Hurry up Sy! We’ll be late, Ruthie hollered from the hallway, as she threw on her wool coat. The last time they…
The Only Alternative
Martin Luther King Jr., said, “Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness.
Something Smells Foul
Excerpt from Paging Dr. Leff: Pride, Patriotism & Protest. In late 1969 and early 1970, Udorn Royal Thai Air…
As Precious As Gold
The drought had lasted many moons. Life’s energy on earth was slipping away. Mammals, reptiles and fish had…
The English Lesson
They stopped at 410 Stadler. Sy kept the gas guzzling, early eighties Plymouth idling, as Ruthie got her folder…
The Color of Fear
The Color of Fear: “Your mother’s been murdered!” The woman who gave you birth and taught you the meaning of love,…
My Son Ryan and AIDS
In 1984, one week before Christmas, Jeanne White was told that her son Ryan had contracted AIDS from a blood…
Good Neighbors In Rwanda
If there hadn’t been a gigantic sign on the street saying “C.E.L.P.A.R. Polyclinique”, the house within which it…
Women On Front Lines
Women are offering their personal resources, time and energy like never before. At least 59 percent of those…
When Animal Friends Die
They say cats have nine lives. I wish that were true, but the facts contradict such myths. Everything dies,…
Finding Peace In Hell – The Life of Nicola Geiger
Events that can and often do, devastate us emotionally, can also be used for personal transformation and growth.…
A Cure For Susie
Susan G. Komen was married, with two small children, when she was given a diagnosis of metastatic breast…
Leah And Yitzhak Rabin Dying For Peace
November fourth, 1995, an international day of mourning. After completing a speech and rally for peace the Prime…
Close to the Bone
“Let them go.” “Get over it.” “Move on.” “Pull yourself together.” “Quit living in the past.” “Look towards the…
Birthday In Rwanda
Volunteering for three weeks with a medical team and trauma specialists to provide care to children orphaned by the…
Taking Feminism To Bed
Until I read Bell Hooks books on feminism and love – Communion: The female search for love and All About Love – I…
Afraid Of Fear
Even though anxiety, fear, and apprehension are a reality most Americans live with, in varying degrees, we do not…
Laughing At Death
A famous comedian once said that, “Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.” And as far as I know, it still…
The Best Ingredient Of All
One mother, two mothers, three mothers or four – we can never have enough love and care for our children. One…
The Last Thing On My Mind?
“My friends keep telling me I have to ‘get out more’ and meet somebody new.” Jan stated. “Don’t they realize it’s…
Cheapest Trip Ever!
It was on a gorgeous afternoon that I sat at an outside table of a local downtown coffee house and took an…
The Mad Woman That Changed America
On May 3rd, 1980, Candace Lightner’s thirteen-year-old daughter Cari was hit and killed by a drunk driver as she…
Queer Gals for Straight Guys
Wake up my testosterone engorged brothers. Our estrogen dominant queer sisters have the inside scoop on pleasuring…
Are You Dead When You’re Dead?
How we feel, believe or think about what happens to us after we die matters. It matters because our thoughts…
Love, Lust, and Pheromones
Some folks search for love all their lives and never find it. Some run into it in their teens and others when…
My Mother’s Son
After spending a week together, I discovered that my Mama-San, as I used to call her when I was a teen, is getting…
How Old Are You?
It happened right before my eyes and I didn’t see it. How could I have missed it? How could I be so blind? My…
Baby Wreaks Havoc
Having a newborn wreaks havoc on two aspects of daily life I used to take for granted sex and sleep. I would…
Oprah Show Hits Home
The promo for the story that was on Oprah recently reads, “In an instant, a car accident shattered their lives.…
10 Exercises For Living With Loss
Though there are thousands of ways to release the pressure cooker of emotion and suffering that death can cause,…