My newest book was finished during NaNoWriMo in a first draft form. It is a prequel to Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It is now available on Createspace.com and Amazon. I also have a new collectin of short fiction coming out any day now, BURST.

Last summer I published "Stairs of Sand," women's fiction (see tab).

My first novel is out, "Some Rivers End on the Day of the Dead."  One of my aunts said, "How did you choose that topic?"  The truth is that I chose to write about a high school girl, and then I needed a reason for her journey to take her back home.  The writing process. . . it amazes me and is often the subject of my poetry.

At a time of intense writer's block for the sequel to my first novel, I collated some of my short stories and flash fiction, added 6-word memoirs and hint fiction, plus a novelette. The volume is called "Flash Warden and Other Short Fiction) is available in Kindle and paperback. I should have a second Flash volume ready for summer, "Apocalypse Tao."

Books, those I've read and the words I've written, have been my most important bridge to the world, articulating what I have felt but have not spoken and helping me to understand the lives of others. 

My father served in WWII on the carrier Enterprise, and joined the army after the war. I was an army brat.  Before I was a one year old, we left for Germany, where my father was the commander of a brigade escorting the trains between Germany and the American sector of Berlin.  We lived in Kassel and Frankfurt.  Returning to the U.S., we moved to my mom's home town, the most southwesterly city in the U.S, Imperial Beach, California. My mom loved the outdoors and most of all, the ocean.  She could body surf with the best of them, clear into her seventies!

It is at the center of my writing, this little town of Imperial Beach (fondly known as IB). For a different look at it, the town is featured in "Tijuana Straits" by Kem Nunn. I lived there long before drugs and violence hit the outer reaches.

Many of my memoir stories and the novel-in-progress are set in Imperial Beach and the San Diego area, which will always be home to me. I left San Diego for UCLA and never lived "down south" full-time again.

Majoring in English at UCLA was a dream come true for me. . . I was going to get college credit for READING as much of the great literature of the world as the curriculum could require and then some, as I read in my free time too.  And as I taught, I learned of more authors and more books, poems, essays. . .things I continue to think of and quote to myself even now. 

Favorite authors?  I would say poet, William Blake; poet, Mary Oliver; novelists Nina Revoyr (Southland, The Age of Dreaming); Margaret Atwood (The Year of the Flood); Susan Kenney (Sailing); JonEllen Heckler (Safekeeping); Mary Lawson (The Other Side of the Bridge); Steve Pressman (The Afghan Campaign and Gates of Fire); Cecilia Brainard (When The Rainbow Goddess Slept); and Eve LaSalle Caram (The Blue Geography); Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants)., Madeline Miller, (The Song of Achilles). Check my listmanias on Amazon under "Gladdy Me eg" of Santa Clarita.  I must have 1000 more books to list.

I also recommend goodreads.com, shelfari.com, Shewrites.com, and MY BLOG:

www.eileengranfors.blogspot.com

When I remarried, I think I married Daniel Boone.  He worked in Alaska and Dinky Creek, CA, and is bristling that we have neighbors near our retirement home in Galena, MO. (We didn't know they were THAT close until we saw a plane's view photo of the house). Our home always includes dogs from rescue groups--we have down-sized from labradors (after Pete and Clayton died) to smaller, crazier breeds, a cockerpoo and a terrier mix.

I taught high school senior English until I realized that I had more homework (grading papers) than my students did and finally said, "Hey--it's time to LIVE!

I am involved in the UCLA Writers' Program, which I love. I have used writing as my voice in the wilderness since I was about seven. As Annie Lamott said in "Bird by Bird," a writer is often the good, quiet child, watching from the sidelines, observing and remembering. So it was with me.

My husband and I plan to move to the Ozarks as soon as we can. I often visit our Missouri home for the solitude it provides for thinking and writing. We can't wait to move out of LA madness. And we will have the advantage of being nearer to our daughters in Raleigh, NC, and son and family in Ohio.

I am in love with books and have to divide my day into house chores, time to write and time to read.  And then there is dog time too. . .and always, time for my Daniel Boone, Patrick.--unless he starts playing his electric guitar too loud or turns on the Van Halen full blast!

Patrick and I are collaborating on a first anthology of poetry, to be published ???????? who knows when.