My Life
I grew up in a bifurcated family that moved often. My father taught writing but was a perfectionist who only published collections he edited of others' works. My mother was a social worker. We lived in the Pacific Northwest, Missouri's Ozarks, the Hudson Valley, and Alaska. We spent years in rural England, where I went to various schools. We traveled throughout Europe in a refurbished World War II ambulance, camping like gypsies. Then we settled in rural Virginia, from whence I found a way to continue my schooling in Vermont (Putney School) and then Ohio (Kenyon College) and the U.K. (Univ. of Exeter).
I moved to Alaska with a group of college friends after getting my B.A., housesitting the island my mother had moved to after re-marrying. I worked with the U.S. Forest Service, started a film series (that is running to this day), hosted a steady series of creative friends and began writing poetry seriously enough to get into a number of key Creative Writing programs around the U.S. I moved to New York, where Alan Ginsberg suggested I write about the subways. I rented an off-Broadway theater and produced theater and poetry events, supported by galas featuring downtown artists. I worked as a reader for a leading literary agent, then worked with the nascent Independent Feature Project, which I eventually left to try my own hand at producing. I became known for throwing extravagant parties and events. I moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, then took the leap to Upstate New York to rebuild my life around writing.
Once re-settled into the Catskills, I started a career writing for, and then editing, community newspapers. I started showing films in old grange halls and churches. I put on arts events, wrote books, became known as an expert on the region. I bought an 18-room former boarding house and hosted weekly dinners. I spent time in NYC, where I ran a salon in Estonia House that attracted leading creatives of the day. I reveled in my yearning life, and then I found the love of my life... and moved yet again.
I moved in with my wife, the artist Fawn Potash, in the one-room schoolhouse she was renovating in the Hudson Valley. We put on art shows, I expanded my writing venues, we pulled ourselves from debt. Fawn brought the artists from Occupy Wall Street into the Hudson Valley. I produced an evening for The Moth. We helped save our local Main Street by leading a drive to re-imagine the ways in which it could accommodate a new courthouse without succumbing to the nation's post-911 fears. We traveled... to India, Europe, the Pacific. Financed our journeys with writing gigs. We adopted a newborn into our lives. We sold our schoolhouse and moved into a giant village home where we hosted school trips from Putney, the Bread and Puppet Circus, an endless array of dinner parties and salons. We found our son an enterprising Free School in nearby Albany... and moved there, becoming members of our school's board, helping launch a local community garden, a community radio station. Once again, our home became a center for friends, creators, kids. I started commuting for work. Took a job with the local library system. Produced a variety of events.
The world changed around us. Parents died. Friends, too. We realized we wanted a new life where we could concentrate more fully on our art, on a shared future beyond our pasts. We set our sights on a move to the Ligurian Coast in Italy... then settled on Mexico's Bajio, and the Central Highland's magical city of Guanajuato. We sold off our U.S. lives and decided to focus on renting. On art. On new friendships. On finding new ways to turn our backs on bad politics and highlight the eternal truths we find regularly in our new Mexican lives. We helped resuscitate an English Language Library in our city. Started supporting local designers and artists. Wrote books, made films, and created new art. We watched our son become a young man, speaking more Spanish than English. We have engaged all that life offers us, as fully as we can.