I GPS my memories. I might not recall the day or year, but I remember the place and how it felt. One of my earliest memories is somewhere around age two, in the living room, light streaming in through wide metal venetian blinds. When I think of it now, my jaw shifts and I bite down lightly at the back of my mouth — the same thing I did as a kid, back when I still had baby teeth. I remember where my first wife said, "We're getting divorced." I remember where I met my second an

Nadia Ciobanu's dream to live and work in America came true all too easily. A handsome young man approached her in a bar, faintly Russian, smelling of expensive cologne and cigarettes. Piercing blue eyes. A thumb scrolling through photos of New York City at night, the Pacific edge of Big Sur. He promised her it would be easy and luxurious. And indeed it was. A modeling contract, something she always knew her features and figure were ready for, awaited her. All the paperwork w

Steve Jobs did not invent the term podcasting when he walked on stage with the first click-wheel iPod. The word came from British journalist Ben Hammersley, writing in the Guardian, years before Apple built a business around the idea. I've owned a Walkman, a Discman, and eventually an iPod — and I remember the specific tedium of ripping an entire music library onto it, one CD at a time, on a Sunday afternoon. Today, podcasts and audiobooks are a fully mature ecosystem. At one

Tali sits in a strip-mall salon, requesting a makeover. The owner of the shop considers her: To Luann, the boyfriend sounded controlling. “He don’t hurt you?” she asked carefully. This is Luann’s backstory. An expanded side story from the chapter “Chrysalis” in Part 2 of Fiery that answers why she asks the question. Tali sits in the second chair at the Curl Up and Dye, a towel at her collar, and Luann works the color into small sections at the crown. In the mirror, Tali is te

Good stories conjure up images, but sometimes they’re even better with a soundtrack. Here’s a short playlist that pairs well with Solstice. (Chapter: Proof of Concept) Chic Chick Poppy Bubblegum synth-pop up top, a bass line that hits like a closed fist underneath. Poppy built her career flipping genres mid-song, and this one flips something else — the line that names who bows to whom, delivered flat, no apology attached. Amy Taggart wears the senator's-wife exterior in every

Good stories conjure up images, but sometimes they’re even better with a soundtrack. Here’s a short playlist that pairs well with Starfish. (Chapter: Bed Time) One Night Stands Gwen Levey and the Breakdown Nashville knows how to build a track that holds softness and power simultaneously — strings underneath, an anthemic vocal on top, and a pulse that doesn’t quit. And Gwen Levey knows exactly what she’s doing with both. This is the Elaine Ionello the Directorate never reached

Good stories conjure up images, but sometimes they’re even better with a soundtrack. Here’s a short playlist that pairs well with Watershed. (Chapter: Granite Valley) Tell Me About Missouri Wyatt Earp James Newton Howard On long scenic drives across the country, I've built a playlist heavy on expansive movie scores — the kind that make you want to pull over just to look. This one is titled for Missouri, but the swelling strings and French horn melody carry something wider: th

Good stories conjure up images, but sometimes they’re even better with a soundtrack. Here’s a short playlist that pairs well with Fiery. (Chapter: The Dinner Party) Not A Day Goes By Merrily We Roll Along Katie Rose Clark No playlist would be complete without Sondheim. The magic is how forceful his simple lyrics are — affirmation written in a minor key, devotion that sounds like grief. Lucy Bryngelson made her peace with Tali long ago. They’re business partners now. This most

My college degree was in Mass Communications which makes it unsurprising that I enjoy both movies and television. Before the pandemic, my wife and I would see 50+ films a year in the theater. That’s a lot of popcorn. I’d keep a list and send it to a group of friends with my own ratings. I’m still keeping a list, but differently now. We’ve been living through an era of “Peak TV” which has opened the medium up to some impressive long-form storytelling. With so much to watch I h

Good stories conjure up images, but sometimes they’re even better with a soundtrack. Here’s a short playlist that pairs well with TwinStar. (Chapter: Fly Fishing) Mountain Dance Dave Grusin I bought this album in 1979. Dave Grusin is a Colorado musician whose melodic intelligence shaped some of American film’s most iconic themes — St. Elsewhere, On Golden Pond. Mountain Dance has lived in my ear for nearly fifty years, and when I needed Jenny Canyon’s theme, it was always goi

Toward the end of Starfish the chapter, “Evaluation” ends with this: Tali looked at the window. Her thumb and index finger spread beneath her clavicle, feeling for an invisible dark pearl necklace. “Donna’s boys,” she said. “The older one wants to study marine biology.” No one needed to ask how she knew that. This is Donna’s side story. The Saturday morning Tali arrived, Donna was already on her second coffee, standing at the kitchen counter with a highlighter in her hand and

Connie’s side story. She and Allison Tobias met in college, became roommates and close friends. Connie always orbited Allison, even if the path was a bit elliptical. Callie saw it first. She was at the kitchen counter making tea when Allison came through the front door with him, and Callie's exact thought, later reconstructed, was oh no. Not because he wasn't attractive — he was, in the uncomplicated way of a man who played a sport in high school and still moved like it — but

Jenny Canyon’s presence is always quietly there in GW’s journey. The lunch bag was already on the counter when GW came downstairs. She heard him on the stairs and didn't turn from the window. Davey was at the end of the drive, his orange backpack vivid against the frost-browned grass, shoulders squared with the self-consciousness of a fifth-grader who suspected he was still being watched. The bus would come from the left. He always looked right first. "Creature of habit," she

This is a four-movement partita featuring Britt Cole. In early drafts of Starfish, Britt’s journey was over ten chapters. To streamline the story, it got cut. But it’s a darn good story and condensed here in Britt’s own words. Movement One: Allemande The salon was quiet at this hour — the kind of quiet cool the marble floors held from the August Washington heat. The quiet settling in after midnight when the last town cars and Ubers had gone, and the girls were upstairs or gon

It was a dark and stormy night. Elsa sat at the table a deck of cards, shot of rye, and a Glock. She looked at her watch. Derek was late.

Fly fishing is an important generational skill handed down from Woody Canyon, to GW, and to his son Davey. My own son is mid-stream in the White River coming out of the Flattops. We rode horses that day to get to the stream. Those memories helped conjure the Canyon's Lazy Y ranch.

Jeff Lewis, the Eagle County Sheriff in Fiery has an incident involving national press coverage. It was suggested by Kobe Bryant's arrest for assault where the national media descended for two weeks of intense coverage. Here DA Mark Hurlburt holds a press conference.

Hut trips, especially in the winter are popular for the more adventurous. There are several networks of huts that can be visited on multi-day trips. In Fiery, GW, Allison, and Tali have a long evening conversation in a hut. Walter's Cabin above Vail Pass. One of the ritzier huts, but you still have to ski or snowshoe to get there. Polar Star hut. A good summer destination, too. A small snow cornice above Vail Pass. In Watershed, Tali and GW encounter a much bigger and higher

On July 31, 1976, around 4,000 people had gathered in Estes Park to celebrate Colorado’s Centennial. It had been raining all day, receiving somewhere around 12 to 14 inches in over a 4 hour period. By 9:00 p.m., water in the Big Thompson River went from an average depth of 18” to a 20-foot wall of water surging down the canyon. The result was the flood that took 144 lives and injured 150 people. Bodies were carried as far as 25 miles away. The flood caused $35 million in dama

On July 6 1994, 14 firefighters were killed when a fire they were fighting west of Glenwood Springs overtook them. It's part of the western experience, and in my life I have experienced several -- up close, but safely. The Storm King Mountain fire and memorial site. The Deep Creek Forest Fire near the Flattops. In the area where the Canyon Lazy Y ranch is. Too close for comfort. A forest fire from the driveway of our Vail Valley home. The next day up on the ridge as firefigh