Detail from The Crucifixion of St. Peter, by Michelangelo, from the cover of Forbidden Knowledge Twenty-eight years ago, in October 1996, I bought a book so full of knowledge and food for thought that since then I have returned to it again and again and keep it on the bookshelf behind me as I sit…
“i” before “e” except after “c” . . . EXCEPT . . . . . . when your foreign neighbor Keith receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters. Weird.
The following snippets are from Back to the Cold War: Russia uses Mexico as a Hub for Spying on the U.S. in today’s NBC News. “Russia has added dozens of personnel to its embassy staff in Mexico City in the past few years, even though Moscow has only limited trade ties with the country.” Russia’s…
I’ve been an Authors Guild member for 33 years. The following is a communication from todays Guild mailing. The Authors Guild and a coalition of bookstores, booksellers, authors, and publishers filed a lawsuit on July 25, 2023, challenging Texas House Bill 900, the ironically-titled “Reader Act.” The law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of…
Many books have been written — and will continue to be written — about the complexities of free speech. In the US, the issue was never simple, even from the beginning as the nation’s constitution was being written. But as time has passed through decades and centuries, as global cultures have expanded and interacted with…
For those who don’t write fiction — or any kind of professional writing — the work itself hardly seems to be “work” at all. One sits and thinks, then writes some ideas. How hard could it be? Of course, as a novelist I would beg to differ with that viewpoint. How hard could it be?…