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
I’ve written my share of fiction off and on over the years, and as a result, I’ve developed a few ways of building stories—tools of the trade, as it were. These have worked for me more often than not. So for any of you who are interested in trying your… Continue reading
That statement may sound odd, but it’s true. Maybe it’s true of other writers, as well, that they don’t know what they have in them until they write it down. I’ve never asked. But I say this because, when I have ideas or notions or concepts or philosophical uncertainties, I… Continue reading
On January 12, 2007, Joshua Bell, the virtuoso violinist, played six classical pieces over the course of forty-five minutes for commuters passing through the L’Enfant Plaza Station of the Washington, DC, subway line. Bell did not advertise who he was, and no publicity attended this event. Because he appeared to… Continue reading
