Frank Herbert’s Dune was the book that finally sparked the desire within me, at age 14, to write, even though I read voraciously as a kid without thinking anything more of it other than I really enjoyed stories. After finishing Dune, I promptly wrote the first three chapters of a horrid, epic medieval fantasy with space opera tinges that has never ever seen the light of day, and never will. (I’ve lost those chapters by now. Back then, we had what we call “typewriters” to format our words to readable type if we wanted to share our scribbling.) I told my mother I finally knew what I wanted to be…

I hit a bucket list milestone today; it was one I thought would likely happen this year, but even then, when I finally held it in my hands, I felt only ambivalence — even though I’ve worked all my life to get here. The reason: when I was a kid, I always felt that if I could hit this milestone, I’d “make it”. I’d have a nice car, a nice house, a loving partner in crime, and be able to care of my parents when they got old. I wouldn’t need to worry about which bills to sacrifice so that we could make the mortgage, eating dark meat instead of…