Dedicated to the People of Darfur

Foreword
Preface

Part I: The Fears Within
Weeping Unfamiliar Tears
Scared
The Risk of (Not) Communicating
Real Risks
Holding a Little Girl's Hand
Safe Passage
Rescuing Fire from the Flood

Part II: Writing Risk
Life Drawings
Writing Toward the Center
Like a Syrupy Sweet
An Apostate in Academe
Risks in Writing the Novel, The Rape of Sita
One Man's Risk
Writing Sucks
On the Line
Politics and the Imagination

Part III: Where I Come From
That Other World That Was The World
Melodious Chimes
Rescued by Junkies
The Prozac Variations
Our Side of the Tracks
The House Fire
The Risk of Deadness
The Risk of Consciousness
High Noon at Midnight
Recipe
Risk

Part IV: Creating Change
Taking Risks
Spinning
Girls and Guns
From Individual Despair to Collective Risk-Taking
Angels or Apes? An Inquiry Into the Nature of Modern Sadism and the Optional Extinction of Our Species
Reclaiming the Self, Pain and Risk in the Pursuit of Our Best
Skateboarding the Third Rail
Choices on a Runaway Train
A Kinder, Gentler Patriotism

Part V: Leaving Safety
XYZ
Sunday Morning in Oakland
Island Journal
Devil's Work
Camping Out of the Comfort Zone
Males and Risk
The Politics of Hope
Everyday Courage and the "How" of Our Work
Mutually Assured Destruction and Jumping Horses
Jump
The Only Word I Heard was "Abeeda." That Means Slave