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It’s official. Our house is now “Sale Pending.” Next step is the closing on July 17. The day after that is my birthday. Yes, this is my birthday gift. And then, on July 27, we hit the road to Palm Springs, CA. Goodbye, Ann Arbor, beloved home since 1987. But hello Palm Springs to be closer to David and Samantha, who live in Palm Desert, and Carrie, who lives in Las Vegas. Competing with the War It’s been a long time coming. We were looking at a sellers’ market as we approached launch day. We had every reason to believe—and everyone who worked with us or admired our home agreed—that we would sell the house quickly. Our realtor teased us with thoughts that we might attract a bidding war and […]

Valentine’s Day 2026: Emily was in South Carolina visiting her brother and sister-in-law. I texted her in the morning, because I knew she would still be asleep: “Happy Valentine’s Day, my love. On my way to prison. Will call when I get back home.” I Dress for Decency My game plan for the day was to visit a prisoner at GEO North Lake Processing Center, aka North Lake Immigrants Concentration Camp, in Baldwin, Michigan. I was prepared to follow all the rules so that I wouldn’t be denied entry. I took my driver’s license and a $20 donation out of my wallet so I could store my wallet with my keys in my knapsack. My pen and notebook I left there as well, comforted in the assurance that “3×5 note […]

It’s been a long time in coming but today, July 14, is launch date for my memoir, Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer. On behalf of my publisher, Azenphony Press, I invite you to celebrate with us at my book launch party. Third Mind Books, 118 E. Washington Street, in Ann Arbor, is playing host. Party begins at 7 p.m. I Offer My Beat Credentials This is my first time speaking at Third Mind Books. I’m especially honored because they specialize in literature of the Beats. To get the invitation, I had to prove my Beat credentials. How did I do that? Come to the book launch and find out my personal connections to Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders, Paul Krassner, and other literary legends. As historian Harvey Wasserman notes […]

This post is about an historic union victory and the upcoming memoir that celebrates it. In 1992, a small, sinister no doubt, group of adjunct faculty members at Eastern Michigan University—known euphemistically as part-timers even though some taught up to eight classes a semester, on three campuses throughout southeast Michigan to make ends meet—came together and made a vow: that they would create one bargaining unit for all adjunct faculty members, both part-timers and full-timers. It was a gutsy move. In all of Michigan history, no such bargaining unit—for adjunct faculty exclusively—had ever existed. In addition, they faced a hostile administration. By the end of that first meeting, they had formed themselves into EMULOC: Eastern Michigan University Lecturers Organizing Committee (later Congress). They began their first card campaign the next […]

Susan Brownmiller, legendary feminist author and pioneer leader of the second wave of the feminist movement, died Saturday May 24, 2025. Susan was best known as the author of the groundbreaking book, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, the book that put rape on the map as a feminist issue. It was my honor to have her in my life for one brief but significant, for me, moment. Here’s what happened: I Give in to Groupie Tendencies I was sitting at my desk at the publishing house where I was working by day when the voice over the intercom announced that I had a call on line 3. I was at the time at a low point in my life. The entire inventory of my Voices from the Underground […]