December 23, 2020 Dear Friends and Relatives, These days, I am reminded of a favorite expression by my late brother-in-law: “We’re havin’ some fun now.” I dredge that up with irony dripping off me like foam sliding down a glass of beer poured too fast. How in God’s name did almost half of this country […]
Michael Hartnett Michael Hartnett is the author of six novels, his latest being Blue Gowanus, which I reviewed below. He holds a doctorate in English, is a high school teacher and adjunct professor at Long Island University, and has been a poetry editor. A trenchant critic of social phenomena, he had this sober, and […]
Rob Eagar, a book marketing expert and author of several nonfiction books, is the first person I’ve come across in the business of public relations to abandon a neutral position on President Donald Trump, excoriating his attempt to destroy our democracy and calling on writers to do likewise. He penned the following essay a few […]
Some 30 years ago, I bought a Hon office chair from Costco, one with a gray, cloth fabric that I could sit on after a sweaty workout without my skin sticking to it. Its tension-control knob allowed me to lean back and put my feet up on my tech-frustration-battered desk for lengthy phone conversations. A […]
Sen. Elizabeth Warren The bumper of my 2010 Mazda is a stream of stickers dedicated to two people who couldn’t be more different: Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren. On either end of the bumper is the same sticker: A pumpkin carved to look like Trump with the adjacent message, “Trumpkin: Orange on the outside, hollow […]
San Jose, Costa Rica “These vagabond shoes, they’re longing to stay.” That wasn’t a typo. If I keep having the kind of experiences like the one I just had in a trip to Costa Rica for dental work, my rendition of New York, New York will alter a lyric. Allow me to digress. Ten years […]
David Fitzgerald While deleting a huge backlog of emails to avoid paying a Google fee on this Easter weekend, I ran across an internet interview posing the question of whether Jesus Christ ever existed. It was written by noted atheist David Fitzgerald. I was interested not just due to the uncanny timing, but because I […]
After I posted an article about the coincidental ways in which several ostensibly disparate elements came together on the Easter weekend, a couple of people told me they couldn’t open the link to my easy guide for reviewing my book Blood on Their Hands. That’s because the link — really just a Word file address […]
Hello again, y’all. I seem to be hopping around on this newsletter like the Easter bunny, who always gets energized this time of year. Except he’s (she’s?) – hesh has already done hiser thing, and I’m still fired up, like a whirling dervish. I wanted to let everyone know that my roman à clef Murder […]
Rob Eagar An elderly woman who lives in my condo complex told me her mother had advised never to talk about religion or politics, a common caveat. The reason, of course, is that both are charged issues, and liable to arouse emotions that create discord, or worse, anger. But there are times, I […]