Category Archives: Personal

In these dark days…

Posted on December 19, 2020 by Gabriella West

In “times of trouble,” as Paul McCartney put it once, we all need a little Beatles reminiscing. Here’s Paul looking back on his friendship with John and George. https://www.npr.org/player/embed/945390087/945578848 And… Smashwords started its End of Year sale early this time! … Continue reading →

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Happy Thanksgiving 2020

Posted on November 26, 2020 by Gabriella West

It’s a quiet, chilly, blustery day here. While the Covid news is obviously very bad, I’m trying to find good signs amid the bad ones. So here’s a good one: Claire the Scottish Deerhound won the top prize at the … Continue reading →

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Big Fires Everywhere…

Posted on September 9, 2020 by Gabriella West

“Extremely dense & tall smoke plumes from numerous large wildfires, some of which have been generating nocturnal pyrocumulonimbus clouds (fire thunderstorms), are almost completely blocking out the sun across some portions of Northern California this morning.” –Climate Scientist Daniel Swain … Continue reading →

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Coronavirus Dispatch #3: It’s Surreal

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Gabriella West

I’m going to keep these short, as none of us have a lot of bandwidth these days. But yes, it’s surreal. We have gone over 20,00 deaths in the U.S. as of today. In a few days, it will be … Continue reading →

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Coronavirus Dispatch #1

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Gabriella West

Here’s how it started, at least the official story, from a site called CIDRAP (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy) that I just happened upon today on the web: “As suspected, a novel coronavirus has been identified in some … Continue reading →

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Happy Holidays…

Posted on December 16, 2019 by Gabriella West

Somehow, it’s mid-December. This year does feel especially Christmas-y, if only because the weather is decidedly wintry… and the sister of a school friend, whom I have not seen since I was twelve, volunteered to send me a Christmas pudding … Continue reading →

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Loma Prieta Memory: Reading Pinter by Candlelight

Posted on October 17, 2019 by Gabriella West

(Note: I lived through Loma Prieta in 1989, which is now, incredibly, 30 years ago. The first section of this essay was written in 1999, on the 10th anniversary of the earthquake.) I’d been in San Francisco for a little over a … Continue reading →

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A Short Month, but an Exhausting One!

Posted on September 29, 2019 by Gabriella West

September was pretty exhausting! Due to a reshuffle at a magazine I work for, I was unexpectedly placed in a different role: copyediting rather than proofing. When I used to work for the Pacific Sun in San Rafael, I envied … Continue reading →

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A Pride Month Update

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Gabriella West

It’s Pride Month, and I have been fairly busy on the writing and self-publishing front. First, I just put A Knight’s Tale, Books 1 & 2, my LGBT medieval historical romances, on Smashwords; they can be found here. I’ll update … Continue reading →

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Some Thoughts on Charlottesville as the Eclipse Approaches

Posted on August 14, 2017 by Gabriella West

I don’t have anything particularly profound to say about the tragic events in Charlottesville this weekend except to say that my greatest fear after Trump was elected was that there would be blood in the streets. And so it has … Continue reading →

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