What do you do for a living?
I formally retired after 34 years of teaching writing at UCSC. Now I help science students write their personal essays for admission to graduate and medical school in addition to doing free-lance editing and giving an occasional lecture.
What would you be doing if you weren’t doing that?
I might be running a storefront literacy center on Pacific Avenue where people could develop their reading and writing in a supportive environment.
What do you do in your free time?
I take photographs and write about them (see: One Way of Seeing: Photographs & Essays During a Time of Reflection 2010). I carry on conversations with myself as I walk around this beautiful town, stopping to interact with neighbors, and indulging my curiosity about others’ lives at Lulu Carpenter’s.
What brought you to Santa Cruz?
I was invited to help build College Seven (Oakes College), UCSC, an experiment in higher education to improve democracy.
What’s your favorite street?
Walnut Avenue, with its extraordinary sycamores, Victorian houses, and sidewalk inscriptions.
Name something you’re excited about.
Young Americans deriving inspiration from young Egyptian activists.
Name a pet peeve.
Drivers who are oblivious to pedestrians and Know-Nothingism.
What are you reading?
Luis Camnitzer’s Original/Copy, Sarah Bakewell’s How to Live or A Life of Montaigne, Howard Fineman’s The Thirteen American Arguments, and Cass Sunstein’s Going to Extremes.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned in the last three years?
Love for my granddaughters is infinite.
Secret star crush?
Polaris.
