A couple of months ago, while cruising the Web, I came across a piece written by Canadian blogger Jay Stone called “Chaos Theory and the Rhythm of Movies” (http://communities.canada.com/shareit/blogs/stonereport/archive/2010/02.aspx). He referenced an article in the journal Psychological Science in which authors James Cutting, Jordan DeLong, and Christine Nothelfer of Cornell “used the… Continue reading
What is the coolest thing that could ever happen to a person? Yes, that’s right! Finding out that a heavy-metal band in Siberia has written a song based on one of your short stories! This has actually happened! Purely by chance, I came across a link on the Web that… Continue reading
The only question worth answering is this one: How soon are we going to turn things over to women to run? In fact, given the state of affairs of the past seven thousand years or so, the question actually is this: Shall we turn the world over to women this… Continue reading
Every month or so, Jill Elaine Hughes, Joe Bonadonna, and I get together, out here in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, as writers around the kitchen table to talk shop. Jill’s star is definitely rising; she’s an accomplished and very well-regarded playwright and a novelist. She writes romance novels and… Continue reading
“Aha! I understand everything now!” —SpongeBob SquarePants For the past year, I have been actively trying to land an agent to represent one or all three of the novel-length manuscripts I’ve completed in the past few years. I am not having much luck. Part of the problem may be me…. Continue reading
By book catalogs, I mean those periodic sales catalogs that show up offering deals on remaindered books. The perennial chief among these, I guess, is the Bargain Books catalog offered by Edward R. Hamilton. I’ve been getting this sales catalog off and on for my entire adult life, I think…. Continue reading
I saw Avatar over the weekend with my friend Joe Bonadonna. He is more tolerant of this picture than I am. I confess to being of two minds about it. On the one hand, I am envious of any fanboys out there aged 11 years or more because they get to live… Continue reading
I love this book, Cheap Thrills by Ron Goulart. It came out in 1973 from Arlington Press. Does that house even still exist? It’s a history of the pulp magazines, and it features no illustrations, no reprints of the loud, bright, nightmarish covers we all know so well, just words. It is… Continue reading
In an article in the December 15, 2009, Los Angeles Times, David Ng writes about a museum exhibition that is likely the first of its kind. “Out West” looks at the history of gays and transgender persons in, well, the Old West. The play on words in the title is a… Continue reading
This is the type of book that I’m always happy to find and add to my library, a painless general reference or handbook that is enormous fun to peruse and worthy of losing oneself in for an afternoon or the better part of a day. I found it at the… Continue reading
