Michael Davis' site dedicated to writing, travel, and commentary.
A story about ghosts and possums. I saw my nephew, Ricky, in the Amvets parking lot on a freezing Saturday in December with a centimeter of slick ice on the blacktop and a fair amount of booze in my veins. My three friends, Burt, Leo, and Klaus, came out with me to the car, since... Continue Reading →
When I see something ignorant, robotic, and false being held up as brilliant, innovative, and true, I think of how good my life must be. I tell myself there will always be stupidity and hypocrisy in the world, especially in writing and publishing. I remind myself that it’s better to feel compassion for people caught... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
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
Let's say you've labored long in the fields of creative writing and the People Who Know (or maybe just the people who've noticed) have appreciated your talent. Some have appreciated it loudly and publicly, some quietly to friends in ways that eventually come back to you, some through amazing feats of jealousy, and others through... Continue Reading →
Today, I think I overcame my hitherto impassable mental block, the one I always get between pages 50 and 70, that indicates I've hit the "swampy middle." The term "great swampy middle" wasn't invented by me. In fact, I have no desire to discover who first coined the term because I have no desire to... Continue Reading →
There are a number of things Victoria won’t do. And the trouble with that is I’m paying her to get up off her skinny ass every fifteen minutes and look down at the street. And that’s exactly one of the things she won’t do. She won’t do it because I want her to. She won’t... Continue Reading →
Friends, I'm offering a short fiction writing course (actually three courses in one), designed to take someone from the basics of story writing all the way through the publication process. If this is something you're interested in, take a look at the link below. https://writingexpedition.com/fiction-writing-instruction/
The Writing Expedition 