The Gift is to the Giver

Mark Gozonsky's first collection of writings focuses on the problem of being a mostly-happy person in a manifestly unfair and troubling world. How to align the inner pep with the external bleakness? Marko explores this question in the context of his personal passions: calibrating athleticism and age; teaching high school English unconventionally to put it mildly; attempting to undo the damage his best intentions cause his big-by-Los Angeles-standards garden. Do these pieces -- some published in The New York Times, The Sun, Lit Hub, the Best American series; others in litmags both medium-sized and small; still others self-transponding from the Unknown -- do they answer that question of how to reciprocate good fortune? Well, you don't really strike me as the kind of person who reads books for answers per se. The vibe I'm getting is we both like writing that embeds us in the author's brain pan, wherein we can wriggle with the zip and zing of each synapse as they make their realizations and inferences and cross-reference them all with song lyrics and things we have read and done and felt. Process, not product. Questions leading to more questions. Journey as destination. I'm here for you.