In the darkest cardboard box on skid-row emerges the semicolon shooter Lynne Beckenstein. Join her as she tells how her sobriety led to the royal we (read her story in the Jan. Issue).

1) What is your nautical history? Where does your life intersect with the water?

I’m a terrible sailor – always seasick. But I have spent a lot of time with family from Staten Island, Brighton Beach, and the Jersey Shore. My mother worked for John A. Noble, the maritime artist, so I grew up in a house hung with etchings of ship graveyards like the one in “Scavengers in the Boneyards.”

2) Reading your story made me feel like I was sitting against a live oak, drinking water on a hot day after working in a soy field. Why do I feel this way?

Hard for me to say, but that is evocative! I like the image of stories as thirst-quenching. Continue reading →