Assessing interest: I’m thinking of starting another 5-week fiction writing and publishing tutorial for individual students. And if I get a lot of interest like last year, I might put together some small group workshops as well. Over the last 2 years, I’ve taught 12 students. That’s not a lot when you think of large… Continue reading Fiction Writing: the Private Course
The Way of All Things
Wherein I give myself a stern talking to . . . "I'm lost. Life makes no sense. It's unfair." Because, deep down, you have beliefs. You believe it should be different. The problem is not the world or your life. Those things are nature—formless, amoral, apolitical, adogmatic, unorthodox, unpredictable, beyond systems and formulas, always changing. … Continue reading The Way of All Things
Being a Creative Writer in an Age of Anxiety
A colleague of mine, a self-employed commercial artist and science fiction writer I will call “Jim,” recently declared, “If you’re a man getting close to your 50s and you haven’t done something yet, don’t say you’re doing to do it someday because you probably won’t.” Jim was criticizing another guy in the same industry, who… Continue reading Being a Creative Writer in an Age of Anxiety
America’s Sad Comedy
My latest on Splice Today: https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/america-s-sad-comedy
Social Justice and Online Zen
Just about every day, I see idealistic, well-meaning people online proposing solutions to social problems. Many of those solutions reflect utopian, siloed thinking, requiring highly unrealistic, comprehensive overhauls to systems that have been in place for a long time. It kind of breaks my heart. I know people want positive change and improvement. And I'm… Continue reading Social Justice and Online Zen
You Might Live to be 100
Too much death in the air these days . . . The truth is you have no idea. If you're morbid and enjoy reading tragic stories, you might have nevertheless noticed that the terminally ill, those infected with bizarre venereal diseases (or run-of-the-mill venereal diseases, or even run-of-the-mill venereal Covid), people given personal doomsday clocks… Continue reading You Might Live to be 100
Black Ribbon
Then my uncle bought the costume shop. And, for a while, things got interesting again. New Years Eve, 1991, he let me borrow a classic notch-lapel tuxedo and some patent leather shoes. The whole package. Socks. A cotton laydown collar shirt. Onyx links. And a midnight solid bow tie. “You look like James Bond,” he… Continue reading Black Ribbon
What’s Left?
My mother used to lecture my grandmother about wearing a seat belt when we were in the car together. I found this fascinating. Usually mom would be driving; though, on the occasions my father allowed himself to be browbeaten into some lacklustre family outing, he became the driver by default. My grandmother would always be… Continue reading What’s Left?
Everywhere Under Your Feet
“[Bilbo] used often to say there was only one Road; and that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. ‘It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,’ he used to say. ‘You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your… Continue reading Everywhere Under Your Feet
Dirty Realist Protests Too Much
Read my latest on Splice Today, a response to Alex Perez's piece on the not-so-lost art of "dirty realism": https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/dirty-realist-protests-too-much
The Writing Expedition 