Brent Salish

 

About Brent

Brent Salish (that’s me) lives on an island north of Seattle.

I’ve led an interesting life that informs my books.

I worked for one of those big tech companies (for a long time).

I’ve taught and lectured around the world.

I’ve played in bands. I even directed plays in New York, once upon a time.

Nowadays, I write. (There’s a blog down the bottom of this page, too.)

Novels

Published: First Tuesday, a thriller about stealing the election by hacking just a few voting machines in the right precincts. Torn from the headlines and all that crap, except I wrote it in 2015. And it’s based on real stuff, both deep research and a bit of inside dope. By the way, nothing has changed. It’s still possible for a couple of hackers to pull off the basics of the plot. So go buy First Tuesday, read it, and worry. (And yes, there is a solution to vote-machine hacking. No, it’s not returning to paper ballots. Just… read the book.)

Preparing for Publication:

Short Stories Published

  • Coming Into the Country
    The NY Times acrostic today [spoiler alert] is a passage from John McPhee’s Coming Into the Country, a book that was serialized in The New Yorker in 1977. That’s where I came across it. My parents subscribed, and though I was at that time living on my own in Greenwich Village, I probably went “home”… Read more: Coming Into the Country
  • Obituaries
    Jimmy Carter. Peter Yarrow. A former colleague at Microsoft. And of course millions whom I don’t know, every day. But that’s sort of the point. When we’re young, younger anyway, we hear about people dying, but mostly it’s as indirect as those millions I just mentioned. Yes, rarely – I hope rarely – it will… Read more: Obituaries
  • The Jigsaw of Memory
    A jigsaw puzzle is a) a metaphor, b) a way to take a break, c) an excuse to not-write, or d) all of the above. When our kids were young, we used to play the game Memory with them, where you win by remembering where various words are placed in a face-down array of word-cards.… Read more: The Jigsaw of Memory
  • Culinary Adventures (?) in The New York Times
    The New York Times crossword puzzle this morning (Friday) features the following clue (fifteen letters): Shell food? The answer is something I have never considered and hope never to think about again, but I’m afraid it’s going to haunt my nightmares: GasStationSushi Lovely pun, but I get shivers thinking about the actual (possible) product. And… Read more: Culinary Adventures (?) in The New York Times
  • One More Thought on Jury Service: Presumption of Innocence?
    No humor in this post, either. For the trial for which I flunked out of the jury pool, the defendant was dressed fairly well. He looked middle-class, successful. Until jurors noted the man standing in the back corner of the courtroom when we rose for our (innumerable) breaks. The man was dressed in full police… Read more: One More Thought on Jury Service: Presumption of Innocence?