Hive Mentality Beekeeping runs in families. “The book said to call the fire department and tell them you’ll take swarms. That’s what I did. I got the swarms.” By Shari McCullough, Sept. 16, 2004 | ...
September 27, 2020
Journalist, critic, and memoirist, Thomas Larson is the author of three books: The Sanctuary of Illness: A Memoir of Heart Disease, The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings," and The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative. He has been a staff writer for the San Diego Reader since 1999. He teaches in the MFA Program at Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio, where he also is the Book Reviews editor for River Teeth. He lectures on the craft of nonfiction writing, the memoir, music subjects, and his heart disease, and he facilitates writing workshops as well. His website is thomaslarson.com.
Articles by Thomas Larson
Orchid zealots, brave beekeepers, pit bulls not so bad, vicious seagulls, San Diego birds surveyed, a cactus will take a bullet
Korean War survivors, Hotel Del expels Prince Edward, Spanish Civil War vets, escape from Vietnam, tortured by Japanese
The Forgotten War Conversations with men who never forgot I do not recall putting my foot on Korean soil for the first time. I only remember the cold rain, and running, and others running with ...
September 20, 2020
Oddness of the Waldorf School, food critic Eleanor Widmer, why San Diego's light is unique, MiG killer Randy Cunningham
A Single Mother Alone in the World If the child-support check is late, I let it be. I resent having to beg for anything. I used to be on my ex like white on rice, ...
September 14, 2020
Mark Twain's daughter ends up at the Bahia Hotel, Osama bin Laden's brother at USIU
Third Spud from the Sun: Cameron Crowe Then and Now “A couple things about Cameron set him down a peg from even the rank and file of ’zine greenhorn dust-suckers. He for all intents & ...
September 12, 2020
Most notable San Diego Reader stories of the early 21st Century
Bathhouse Quagmire "I was in those San Francisco bathhouses in the late 1970s," says James Hartline, an HIV-positive Hillcrest man who is campaigning to get San Diego's three bathhouses shut down. "Those bathhouses were a ...
August 23, 2020
Immigrants flock to San Diego
Border Angels "We know the kind of people we catch here. They're horrible people." The Border Patrol agent's tone was no more than blandly informative. It was 7:00 p.m. July 16, and we were at ...
August 9, 2020
The glamour and crime of Tijuana
Don't look now Under normal circumstances, it would be difficult not to stare at ten men dressed in black who brandished submachine guns. Under normal circumstances, ten men dressed in black who brandished submachine guns ...
August 8, 2020
Hard times for San Diego County cities
San Marcos City Manager Jack Griffin begins his annual June letter to the mayor and city council, “It is kind of my pleasure to submit the Fiscal Year 2020-2021 Operations and Maintenance Budget.” That “kind ...
Snakes are the new hamsters
To hold an anaconda, it’s best to spread your hands out like spatulas and let the snake lie there, feeling supported. If the serpent doesn’t feel buoyed in your hands, it will squirm and droop ...
July 29, 2020