What is home? What is loyalty? What is family? This book will make you question them all. "Beloved" is a unique memoir of war and triumph in the fictional city of Damas. Kirin is a young girl nearly orphaned and left in the care of her older brother, Emlyn. After a charismatic, tyrannical king takes control of Damas, capitalism and slavery are forced on its people. Kirin watches as her peers are sold into forced labor. Emlyn, fearing the same fate for his sister, enrolls her in the city's university for historians -- and begins to teach her to fight like a soldier, a path that ultimately leads them both into exile and war. As Kirin grows from a child of seven to a young woman of seventeen, her tale unfolds with shades of trauma, love, honor, and betrayal. She learns the value of family -- and just how crucial it is for historians to document the truth.
I'm an author, journalist, poet, and mom. I've worked as a reporter for several San Francisco Bay Area newspapers, including the San Francisco Examiner and the San Mateo Daily News. In the 1990s, I worked as a music writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, Addicted to Noise, ROCKRGRL, and others.
I'm the author of several books, including Beloved, Read the Music: Essays on Sound, and Sacred Sonoma. My poetry has appeared in New Verse News, Terrain, Tertulia, Bardsong, Dispatch, and Lime Green Bulldozers.
I'm currently writing a book for parents that explains how Satanism, Grand Theft Auto, and Cannibal Corpse can be a healthy part of growing up. My blog, Backward Messages, focuses on media misinformation about violent video games, paganism, heavy metal, goth culture, RPGs, teen literature, and more -- and how this misinformation can hurt adolescents.
I live in San Francisco with my partner and daughter.
