Skip to main content

The Passion of Writing

My wife passed away in June 2021. Before she did, she told me to write.

Somehow, I believe that from the shadows she still urges me on. I work during the day, and with quiet anticipation wait for the moment I can slip back into the world I am creating. I have always enjoyed writing stories about my family—it mattered deeply to me—but the series that became The Anomaly has bewitched me in a different way.

Perhaps it is because every character, every moment, feels layered with humanity. They move me. I can see them; I can meet them. When I began writing The Last Mission of K-88 Grom, I stepped outside. It was raining, six degrees Celsius, with a gentle wind sharp enough to make me shiver. For a moment, I wanted to be in their skin—to draw from my own humanity and carry it back into the story.

To all the readers around the world who visit these pages, thank you.
Here are the most popular posts.

Postscript
I hope The Man Under the Uniform and The Last Mission of K-88 Grom find their way onto this list. I ache when I write these stories—and that ache feels necessary.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Planner 00Iren

When I tell my daughters that their mother was amazing, I am not sure they grasp the magnitude of her stature. They tell me – “Yes dad, we know”. I remember the day I saw Christina the first time. It was in the halls of the chemistry department of Simon Fraser University. We both entered this long hallway at the same time, in opposite directions, in white lab coats, and we had the opportunity to take a good look at each other. When we passed our eyes crossed. She kept walking without turning but I looked back to see her disappear into one of the laboratories. “ Wow, I do not have a remote chance with that girl! ” Years later, after we reunited in Vancouver, she told me that she thought the same "- He is going to make a woman very happy one day"  - She told me that she had no idea that it was going to be her. After I received the ultimatum letter from Canada Immigration, I was left with no option but to escape to the United States and avoid deportation and possible impriso...

A Thousand Pictures, Three Remain

A thousand pictures, scattered wide, Moments frozen, side by side. Laughter, sunsets, faces bright, Fleeting echoes caught in light. Yet in the haze of time's embrace, Only three still hold their place. One of love, so pure, so true, One of loss, a tear in blue. One of hope—a flame so small, Yet the dearest one of all. Yes, you have guessed right; I was not having a perfect moment then I discovered these pictures in my Blogger picture drive; fresh air from the past.  I will sleep with a smile tonight.

Our Charlie, Hegel

It was 1981, and I had barely survived my first year at the University of Havana, where I was studying chemistry. The leap from high school to university had been a huge adjustment—not just for me, but for many others. In the fall of 1979, about 250 of us began the program together. By the second year, fewer than 50 remained. That year we were introduced to a new subject: Philosophy. Every subject has to start somewhere, and we began with the classics—their ideas, their conflicts, their strengths and weaknesses. But one question weighed heavily on us: why study philosophy at all? Shouldn’t we be focused on chemistry—the nature of substances, their reactions, the concepts of atoms, molecules, and bonds? That was the very first challenge we posed to our philosophy lecturer, and to us, it seemed perfectly legitimate. The answer, fittingly, was philosophical. In the Soviet context, philosophy was meant to train us in analytical reasoning and critical thinking—by grappling with big questi...