Blog

My rock and roll romance, A CRUEL KIND OF BEAUTIFUL, is set in Portland, an area known for its hipsters, indie bands, and microbrew. I visited recently with a group of friends, and we had way too much fun beer tasting and trying to pick which beers matched which person’s quirks. In honor of that, I thought I would choose the microbrew that best encapsulated the personality of each character of my Sex, Love, and Rock & Roll Series… Jera: New Belgium’s Citradelic Tangerine IPA. On first glance, this is a fun, refreshing beer. Light, cute, and with enough sass to be perfect for summertime. But after your first sip, you realize there are WAY more complex flavors than you were expecting and a tang of almost-bitter hops underlying everything. Just like the beer, there’s a lot more darkness and... Read More

Of all the places I’ve lived for a minute: Honduras, Thailand, canyons in Utah you’ve never heard of…it’s a little funny that I chose little old Portland Oregon as the home of my Sex, Love, and Rock & Roll series. My critique partner suggested that city because it’s famous for its indie music scene, its delicious microbrewed beers, and I had been there enough times to write about it without sounding like a poser. But mostly I chose it because Portland is a city that embraces its own weird, and that’s exactly what I needed for a series about a band of rising rock stars learning to identify and embrace their own sexual identities. Of course, I had to go there a bunch of times for “research” that included a lot of live music, microbrew tasting, and more money than... Read More