The Official Rodes Fishburne Hub

Fear. Isolation. Loneliness. Ah, the writer’s life.

A group of freelancers in San Francisco believe they’ve found a way to help remedy writer’s block, share advice, get feedback on a first draft and keep from driving their families crazy. They call it The Grotto. continue reading…

The Drilling Company in New York City produced my monologue “Gaggle” at the West 78th Street Theatre from April 11-27th 2003. continue reading…

My newest play, “Waiting for Henry to Snow” a one-act, will be performed at the West 78th Street Theatre in New York City in October 2004. Dates and times to follow. continue reading…

I was commissioned by the Sloan Foundation to write a new play for BioAgenda, a biotech conference which took place Dec.5-7 in Palm Springs, CA. continue reading…

THE instructions were cryptic, and whispered, which made them impossible to ignore: ”Little to the left, righto, righto . . . ,” followed by, ”Cast again.”

That was what our guide, Craig Aspinall, was telling us from his vantage on the bank of the Kaipo River in New Zealand as my wife, Lindy, and I stood midstream and cast to a trout as big as a piece of firewood. The fish was active and not yet ‘’suspicious,” as Craig would say of spooked fish.

The water was so clear that you could see it sucking stonefly nymphs off the bottom with the easy grace of a natural athlete. After several casts, I laid the fly in the right place and three runs, two jumps and one whoop later, we had landed and released our first New Zealand brown trout.
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I wrote this story for my friend Hope Strong, the former editor-in-chief of the Teton Valley News in Driggs, Idaho. He asked me for a letter from the big city.

A letter from San Francisco

The other day in San Francisco, on the Fulton 5 municipal bus line, a young black man got on board and hip-rolled his way down the aisle. He was wearing what a lot of adolescents wear these days: pants so big and billowy they could have been hiding a VW beetle inside each leg and a sports jersey underneath a pullover. He had a blue LA Lakers hat on his head, the bill of which was turned sideways in the style that is the style, know what I’m sayin’? continue reading…

The billboards blinked. It was that time of evening, speeding down Highway 101, when the signs on the side of the road whipped past like a flip book: “You shall receive…24/7…Initial Public Offering…Until You Burst…Totally Free… Now.” Hyper thinking. The car accelerated. continue reading…

A long time ago, and a very happy time it was, I served as the editor of the “The Big Issue,” an annual magazine that asked leading writers and thinkers, from Tom Wolfe to the Dalai Lama, to write personal essays on provocative themes. One year the theme was “Time,” another, “What is True?” another, “The Pursuit of Happiness.” Suffice to say it was extraordinarily stimulating to be working with such interesting and articulate people. And that was just the staff of Forbes ASAP. continue reading…