The books of 2016
2016 ended on a high note for me, literarily speaking. I read some extraordinary books in November and December. As this is one of my favorite blogs of the year, I can’t wait to share them [...]
The inner self, the outer world
“All crime novels are social novels,” says Laura Miller in her recent article “Try To Remember” in The New Yorker, an article devoted to Dublin-based mystery writer Tana [...]
October Newsletter
The State of the State We’re settling in for fall around here. Brilliant color, cold morning walks, baked apples. Most of the wineries have finished harvesting grapes and are now processing [...]
The half-year in books
More than half of 2016 is behind us, and it’s a good time for a mid-year book review. How is your reading going? Mine is a little slower than I would have liked, but I’m reading some [...]
2014 in books
Looking back, over the year, I find that I’ve read only 27 books to date. Strangely for me, there were more books. I just didn’t complete them…or even get very far into them. [...]
The Great Commandment
If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. [...]
Anatomy of a Novel
Much more is involved in birthing a novel than the simple acts of coming up with a story line, planting one’s butt in a chair, and drafting the thing. On the surface, my second novel is [...]