Back in the Stone Age – aka, the 1990s – (Parenthetically Speaking) was a two-sided newsletter that I printed out and mailed to a tight list of about 200 people who I felt needed to know how I was making out in New York City. That thing ran quarterly for most of that decade but ultimately died for various (and sundry) reasons. ANYWAY, to reconnect with old chums and start relationships with new chums, I’m finally (finally!) doing this blog, using the same name of that old newsletter (since I like to fill my personal writing with lots of parentheticals).

I work in pr/marketing in New York City. It’s a pretty time-absorbent career, but I do make time for writing, painting, and cooking (and the unfortunate byproduct that goes with that – cleaning (ugg)).

Here’s a little about my parenthetical life:

The University of Louisiana in Lafayette is my grad-school alma mater (communication/public relations), and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge is where I received my BA in journalism. Before those two, I got an associate of arts degree at the LSU branch in my home town of Eunice.

After working a few years in newspapering (at The Eunice News), then magazining (Baton Rouge Magazine), I started working in a public relations capacity with Tulane University in New Orleans before heading to New York, where I first worked in healthcare PR at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, then back in a university setting at NYU’s Stern School of Business. Spent a couple years in Europe (Belgium a few months, then the UK for another few months, then a couple of years in Poland) before heading back to NYC to work with HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society). After HIAS, I went right back into university PR again, this time at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, National Center for Children in Poverty. Since then, I’ve continued to work in the marketing/communications world for nonprofits specializing in education and healthcare.

I have a very happy, energetic pooch named Hugo. In New York City, I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. In the country, Upstate New York, I live in a great farmhouse that was built in 1851, in the hamlet of Cornwallville (part of the town of Durham). The house in C’ville is where I do most of my writing and painting and cooking. It’s also where I work from home when I’m not in the office.

I’ve written a memoir about growing up in the 1970s & ’80s. Released by the University Press of Mississippi, you can find it here. I’ve also written a companion cookbook for the memoir, as well as a screenplay adaptation for a prospective television series pilot (the book has been optioned by a production company in Los Angeles). Also, I’ve got a new manuscript – for a novel based on my experiences at the motel – which is circulating with early readers for their feedback before I move forward on looking for an agent/publisher.

Since there’s no printing and folding and stuffing and addressing and stamping to do, I should be able to tell my stories and share the recipes and images from the memoir and my current life much more regularly than four times a year – and you, my ethereal chum, are the lucky beneficiary! If you want an automatic ping when I have a new post, you need to FOLLOW me (hit the red SUBSCRIBE button).