The 2019 Noel King Lecture

This year’s Noel King lecture would make my husband Noel so happy! Meet Mercy Yamoah Odoyuye, a Ghanaian theologian and feminist.  Daughter of a Methodist minister and a Church activist, Odoyuye entered the University of Ghana in 1959, where she met Professor Noel Q. King, who urged her to enter the new department of theology. Odoyuye…

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The Optimistic Blackmailer

I am in constant awe of the endless creativity, and perpetual optimism, of the human race.  As a case in point, this amusing missive that dropped into my inbox a short time ago: Hope you do not mind my language sentence structure, since i’m from Philippines. I infected your device with a malware and im…

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Puzzles from the past

For the story I’m working on—a novella, in which SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli revisits her past—I needed to have her look at some high school yearbooks. To remind myself what they looked like, I dug out my own. Now, I graduated in 1970.  Ever since I bought the thing, I’ve wondered what the hell a “Micopacen”…

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Winter in Santa Cruz

Here on the left coast, winter is a really rocky time. Twice a day, we feel low…tide. We’re constantly on the cliffs around here. And yes, we’re all going to the dogs. But still, here’s some waves to you, from me and Steamer Lane.  

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A woman’s wrath

Interesting to look at some of the images that have caught my eye in this past week, wandering through a series of European museums. There seems to have been a theme of some kind. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what that might be. Or why. Can you?

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Noel’s work, continued

The past week saw two kinds of memorial to my husband, Noel King. One was a talk, the latest in a series of “Noel Q. King Lectures” held at UC Santa Cruz. The second was a publication, with Noel as co-author. After Noel died, we started up a lecture series to continue his life’s work…

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Fire season

So there I was, deep in a restaurant in Venice, when a variety of loud sounds from the outer world penetrated my bubble and I looked up to see this… And this…Rather alarmingly close, in fact… So I unplugged my laptop and got in my car and went someplace else for a little while. Now.…

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Takeback Tuesday: fiction edition

I’ve been in Honolulu this past week with crime writers, and it’s been interesting how often politics has been the unspoken presence on a panel. Some of us are outright in our opinions, while others feel that they need to keep their opinions to themselves. Whichever way you feel, there’s no doubt that books carry…

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Takeback Tuesday: our rights

Takeback Tuesday is Team LRK’s weekly vote of confidence in the future, when I talk about steps our community of readers can make in asserting the good. My husband Noel was born in what is now Pakistan. He grew up among Muslims, lived in Africa for many years, and had friends of all religious persuasions…

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What’s this stuff falling from the sky?

It is raining in California. Raining, pouring, pelting, pissing down in a way it hasn’t for years. Hillsides slump, culverts fountain, trees collapse. Feet mildew and children climb the walls. The cell phone has taken to blaring out really quite redundant flood warnings, to suggest to the oblivious or catatonic that the creeks may be rising. The last time…

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