All this happened…
At Bethany on the Jordan
A short piece I wrote after encountering a monk at the Jordan river in the place where Jesus was baptized. Read At Bethany on the Jordan. Originally published at The Good Men Project, October 11, 2020.
Never Stop Dancing: A Memoir
A story of grief, male friendship, and healing conversations.
“Be present,” “cherish each day,” “always say I love you.” John Robinette lived those words. Or so he thought. Then his wife, Amy, was killed instantly in a pedestrian accident.
John’s world shattered, and he began the grueling task of parenting two young boys in a house filled with vibrant, bittersweet memories. As the grief closed in around him, John’s close friend, author Robert Jacoby, saw John struggling and proposed an unusual idea: to interview him over the course of the first year after Amy’s death. Robert’s hope was to meet John directly in his experience of sorrow, explore his grief with him, and discover what lessons might be learned.
Born of a year’s worth of candid interviews, Never Stop Dancing avoids clichéd takeaways about grief and healing to chart a deeper, thornier examination of loss and regret. Robert and John are transformed through their shared experience, too, emerging strengthened and with an abiding male friendship that cuts against the grain of pop-culture trends of quick fixes and easy answers. This memoir-in-conversation provides hard-won reassurances that one can and does go on after loss.
Available now on Amazon. Sign up for updates about specials, sales, and events by visiting never-stop-dancing.com.
Escaping from Reality Without Really Trying: 40 Years of High Seas Travels and Lowbrow Tales (Cloud Books, 2011)
Based on nearly 40 hours of interviews, Escaping from Reality Without Really Trying is the memoir of a 61-year-old, life-long merchant seaman re-counting his fantastic, hilarious, and politically incorrect exploits.
A "welcome relief after a long day at the office when the idea of throwing it all up and running off to sea suddenly seems like the most brilliant idea in the world." – B. Morrison, poet and author
"This is definitely the kind of book that can be read with a beer in hand, as Jacoby states in his author’s note 'Now, go grab a cold one. You’re gonna need it.'" – San Francisco Book Review
Visit the book website, escaping-from-reality.com
Read the chapter “Cape John”
(published in The Oregon Literary Review, Summer/Fall 2008) (now defunct)
Read the excerpt “What Will Entertain People”
(published in Alice Blue Review, Number Eight)
…and I woke up one day to discover I'd written 800,000 850,000 1,000,000 words.
Notebooks
Besides keeping writer’s sketchbooks, which contain ideas and notes for poems, portions of novels, and other works, I’ve kept personal notebooks. Since 1985 I have written about 800,000 850,000 1,000,000 more than one million words…reflections on events, life, and my work. I've written about that here.
