For My Mother on Her Birthday
Sean MurphyI’m scared, I said. “It’s okay,” she said. “You know I’ll never leave you, right? I would never leave this place without you.” How many times did she tell me…
The Story of Self-Publishing (Part Two): Follow the Money
Earlier this year, NPR featured a podcast roundtable wherein four authors tackled the question: Is Amazon The Reader’s Friend? Generally speaking, the debate has been framed in terms of how Amazon…
The Story of Self-Publishing (Part One): Past is Prologue
In my role as an industry analyst for the tech industry I’ve followed the developments of our shifting cultural landscape with keen professional as well as personal interest. In particular,…
Under the Influence: The Story of My Life, Cont’d
Q: What did Holden Caulfield do when he grew up? A: He got a job. That is the elevator pitch of my novel Not To Mention a Nice Life, reduced…
July 28, 1979: The Long Way Home (Revisited)
If I ever need to check myself and consider what a privileged life I've led, I simply need to recall that moving across town in the summer of '79 was…
Not To Mention a Nice Life: Another Day at the Office (Reading)
As I navigate the familiar route, I almost drive off the road when I see a building that I’ve never noticed before, waving to me from the side of the…
Not To Mention a Nice Life: Area 51 (Reading)
Listen: there are people who actually believe that the moon landing never happened. Lots of people. Not that it didn’t happen, necessarily, but that it was an elaborate, carefully staged…
Not To Mention a Nice Life: The Dreaded Day Trip (Reading)
These day trips ask a lot of you, almost so much that you find yourself fondly reminiscing about the good old days you never knew, the days when horse-drawn carriages…
Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past: Steinbeck, Nostalgia, Empathy and Amtrak (Revisited)
WHEN I FIRST read John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America I was not quite old enough to drive. Still, I felt I could appreciate his somewhat elegiac…
“My First Time”, via The Quivering Pen
It was my great pleasure to guest-post at The Quivering Pen, a fantastic site for writers (and readers) curated by David Abrams (himself an excellent reader and writer: check him…