Echoes of DeLillo. The Good Father by Noah Hawley. A gripping novel, with echoes of Don DeLillo, about a father’s reaction to his son’s act of homicide. Wheelchair bound Buzz Aldrin has been hospitalized with fluid in his lungs after the 'ailing' former astronaut had to be medically evacuated from a South Pole. The problem of Morgellons is primarily one of a stark divide between the perceptions of the doctor on one hand, and the patient on the other. When you hand someone your phone to show them a picture, you should be able to trust them not to go swiping through your camera roll. But we live in a fallen world.

Noah Hawley. The Bay Area attracts its own cadre of talented writers. Michael Chabon writes best- selling books in his Berkeley backyard. Isabel Allende has been known to steam up chai on busy days at the Book Passage Cafe in Corte Madera.

Writers as diverse as Danielle Steel, who writes about the ripping of bodices, to former Polk Street hustler JT Leroy, who occasionally wears one, call the Bay Area home. And it’s not just established authors who can be spotted browsing the aisles at Green Apple Books or ordering dim sum out in the Avenues. More and more, new writers are appearing on book jackets above the bio, “the author lives in Northern California” - privacy- protecting code for the Bay Area. Sometimes it seems you can’t spill a latte in a local cafe without splashing a writer. It’s easy to think of reasons why writers wouldn’t thrive in the Bay Area. The cost of housing here makes it next to impossible for a writer working a 2.

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And San Francisco isn’t even in the same time zone as the gang at the New York Times Book Review. So why is it authors multiply here like cheap noodle restaurants? One reason Bay Area is such a good place for writers may be the same reason it’s such a good place for and podiatrists - it’s a terrific place to live.

Dave Eggers most of the time period he wrote about his “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” in San Francisco. He and his brother Toph moved to New York so that Toph could go to high school there. Conventional wisdom has always been that ambitious writers need to live in New York, where they can lunch with editors, and hang out with the staff of the New Yorker. But living in the pulsing heart of the publishing epicenter is not always the best thing for a writer. And I moved away from it for the same reason,” says Daniel Handler, who, under the name Lemony Snicket, has written a series of children’s books that share space with Harry Potter on the New York Times best- seller list. I think because San Francisco doesn’t have a notion of itself as the center of the world, you’re more likely to write about something else that interests you.” Herb Gold, whose most recent book is “Daughter Mine,” moved from New York to San Francisco in the 1. One of the reasons he left was to get away from an East Coast competitiveness that had authors comparing the size of their publicity budgets and ranking each other by how much space they got in Publishers Weekly.

I looked around the table, and the other writers were growing green fangs, and there was saliva coming out of the corners of their mouths, and hair appearing on their knuckles. Everybody was ferociously jealous.” Does this mean that Bay Area writers have mastered a Zen- like detachment that keeps them from experiencing painful stabs of jealousy when they hear about Amy Tan’s latest advance? Handler thinks the explanation is simpler than that. It’s a little like being in the umbrella business.” Local literary agent Amy Rennert also believes authors might not be relegating their latest work to the remainder bin by living on the opposite coast from the publishing world. According to Rennert, publishers look to California for fresh ideas in both fiction and nonfiction. The biggest being a sense of community that doesn’t happen when writers are busy comparing their Amazon rankings. Most people think of writers as a subspecies of hermit, recluses who choose to spend their days in solitude.

But the reality is that too much solitude can turn even the most well- balanced writer into Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” maniacally typing the same sentence over and over. The best- known, and best- working, writing community in the Bay Area is the Grotto, a group of local writers who share office space in an old cat and dog hospital on Fell Street. The Grotto was started in 1.

Ethan Canin (“Carry Me Across the Water”), Po Bronson (“The Nudist on the Late Shift”) and Ethan Watters (“Therapy’s Delusions: The Myth of the Unconscious & The Exploitation of Today’s Walking Worried”). The three wanted a place where they could write together. Especially Canin, who was exchanging working as an emergency room doctor for what Bronson calls “sitting in an extra bedroom staring at the wall.” The first Grotto was a six- room Victorian flat on Market Street. In the current building, the Grotto has 2. None of these offices stays empty for long.

Who can we get?’” The atmosphere at the Grotto is informal. Most of the writers have lunch together on the roof, surrounded by bicycles and junky patio furniture, and across from the former dog kennel where Bronson locks himself in a closet to write. Offices at the Grotto are decorated with personal items - a Mr. T bobble- head and a U. S. Department of Agriculture Potato Disorder Identification chart. Mr Bones 2: Back From The Past Online Putlocker. The writers have personal reasons for being part of the Grotto, too. Bronson describes how it works.

I’ve been writing a book and David Duncan (. And he gave me feedback this morning. I wrote a piece for a magazine last night, and got comments from Ethan Watters this morning. And now I’m just writing.” Bay Area writers turn out to be exceptionally good at finding community.

Maxine Hong Kingston, the author of “The Woman Warrior,” and the forthcoming “Fifth Book of Peace,” found hers at VA hospitals and Buddhist centers. Watch SAGA - Curse Of The Shadow Online. My book was about war and peace, so I gathered together a group of war veterans who wanted to write. Very few of them had published anything, but in their hearts they were writers.” That was almost 1. Kingston’s group of veterans still meets “once a season, to read and write and meditate.” And some of the veterans have now become authors, including John Mulligan, who published “Shopping Cart Soldiers.” JT Leroy (“Sarah,” “The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things”) is the poster boy of what having the support of other writers can accomplish. At 1. 5, Leroy was turning tricks on Polk Street. I would say, . But it was Mary Gaitskill (“Two Girls, Fat and Thin”), who was living in San Francisco at the time, who turned Leroy into a writer. She took those gloves off.

If something warranted being knocked upon my head, she did it.” Gaitskill also made it possible for the clinically shy Leroy to have book readings. But my hands were shaking so hard the words were blurry, and then I threw up. I’m standing there like Carrie, covered in vomit, and people thought it was performance art and applauded. I just ran.” In order to avoid future incidents of public regurgitation, Gaitskill had the idea to have other writers read Leroy’s work for him, starting with herself.

Local authors don’t just rely on each other to help take a book from proposal to New York Times Notable, they also get a big push from local independent booksellers. And in the Bay Area, that’s a pretty big group. Type a San Francisco ZIP code into the Book. Sense Web site search engine, and you’ll wind up with 9.

That’s more than you’ll find in most states. And the booksellers here are so attuned to local authors, it’s almost creepy. The bill came to about $1. In spite of her inadequacies as a retailer, Ryan’s stint as a bookseller paid off.

She got over her stage fright when she realized that the people who come to author events “really want to hear what you have to say.” This story is just one example of why Elaine Petrocelli turns up in so many author acknowledgments, next to the agents and editors who must be thanked. Petrocelli is a kind of patron saint for local writers. Isabel Allende brings the translated proofs of her new novels to Petrocelli to read. Even Book Passage’s popular writing classes were started because Anne Lamott needed the money. So we came up with a class that she could teach.” Now Book Passage has classes almost every night and weekend.

And not all of them are taught by writers who need money. Past instructors have included Frances Mayes (“Under the Tuscan Sun”), Arthur Golden (“Memoir of a Geisha”) and Mary Morris (“Nothing to Declare”).