So the other day I saw this play, Protest, by Václav Havel. You remember Havel: he was the founding President of the Czech Republic, and before that the first President of a free Czechoslovakia. But before that he was a playwright, and also a prison inmate. The two vocations were related.
Category Archives: on Writing
Smiling through the storms. Review of Captain Devin
I do not normally read, or review, children’s books because I am not a child, I have no children, and I principally appreciate children as metaphors or plot devices. My loss, I know, but there you have it. Continue reading Smiling through the storms. Review of Captain Devin
Book review: White House journalist’s new book, “At Mama’s Knee”
Ryan, like all good reporters, works to tell us things that we don’t know. That’s what makes At Mama’s Knee worth reading.
Continue reading Book review: White House journalist’s new book, “At Mama’s Knee”
BAM! Selling Capital City, one book at a time
Fellow scriveners, put aside your dreams of imperial glory. The glory days for you will come, as they are coming for me, when you can sit in a good bookstore, and sell copies of your baby, one book at a time.
Continue reading BAM! Selling Capital City, one book at a time
It Could Get Worse. Review of Splinterlands
So in Splinterlands, the very unusual novel by John Feffer, the world has fallen to tribalism. We’re not talking about Brexit or the dissolution of Yugoslavia; we’re talking about the Walloons of South Brussels at war with the Flemish of North Brussels and the Independent Nation of Vermont and New Hampshire. It is the war of all against all, and, yes, somebody’s making a profit. Continue reading It Could Get Worse. Review of Splinterlands
The Day after I became a Published Author
Here’s what you believe, if you’re like me: the day you become a published author — Published! Author! by a real Publishing House! — your life is transformed. Continue reading The Day after I became a Published Author
Persistence
“Soon I was papering my walls with rejections from agents. “We just didn’t fall in love with your manuscript,” a typical agent’s letter read. So now my writing life was reflecting my dating life.”