Author Archives: J. Michael Jones

Ristretto Rain goes to the presses next week and will be available in bookstores soon after. Here is a blurb: Halem, one of Seattle’s finest coffee roasters and baristas, comes to a gorgeous but remote harbor in Washington’s San Juan Islands to escape her dark past. One day, a mysterious and handsome man comes rowingContinue reading “Ristretto Rain: So Close, I Can Smell the Ink”

I called this meeting, between Sensible and me. It has been a while and, as they say, a lot of water under the bridge. Knowing that Sensible is always punctual. . . to the second, I arrived early to prepare. I had something to say. Questions to ask. I had some bones to pick. IContinue reading “Ramblings: Coffee with Sensible”

First I must ask, how are you doing during these quarantine? I hope you are doing well. Okay, this is a cancer update, but unfortunately, I don’t have much to add. That itself is the story. I was due to return to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance the first week of June for my oneContinue reading “Update:6/30/20”

There was a time in my life, where I imagined that writing books would be a lot of fun. In my very first book (A Kernel in the Pod), which I wrote back in the mid nineties, I describe how my perfect life would be a children’s book writer, living in Zermatt, Switzerland, earning sixContinue reading “Ramblings: Writing is Like Coal Mining”

I am a product of the south. There are many things that a true southern should be proud about. . . our Confederate history, not one of them. The code name that we southern’s like to use for the support of the Confederacy is “our heritage.” Putting it within that narrative makes it sound likeContinue reading “Ramblings: The South Shall (not) Rise Again!”

What would it be like if you had no mental filters? Whatever you thought, you said? I knew a man who had this problem, due to a traumatic brain injury. I will never forget the first thing he said to me, ‘Your breath stinks like coffee.” I would have taken offense, but I knew hisContinue reading “Ramblings: The Art of Dissembling; (The Great Chasm Between Our True Selves, and the Selves that we Project)”

Some good news is that my son Ramsey got tested for the COVID-19 virus and was negative so he could come home from Seattle to stay in our house. Because of my precautions, I cannot have contact even with my own children. Now, he is here to isolate with me. I’m excited today because IContinue reading “Update: 6/6/20 – A Taste of Normalcy”

This year has brought to the forefront, of my mind at least, this age-old question of what is the value of a human life. Two issues have forced me to spend time thinking about this, one personal and the other political. I was told as a child that a human life is invaluable. That toContinue reading “Ramblings: The Weight of a Soul”

With all the fog of political divides, it is sometimes hard to see the forest for the trees. It appears that there are a thousand issues that separate the political right from the left without an unifying theme. It appears that racially-motivated police brutality of people is yet another unrelated issue in which we disagree.Continue reading “Ramblings: Personal Responsibility, the Crux of the Divide”