top of page
THOMAS WOLFE: FOR THE PURE LOVE OF LANGUAGE
THOMAS WOLFE was born October 3, 1900 in Asheville, North Carolina. Appetite is a word often associated with this writer. He "bolted"...
1,084 views0 comments
WITH THIS KEY
"To unlock the heart is to know its secrets, or as close as we may come, to hear its soft inner voice, a thing love alone can achieve,
188 views0 comments
THE DARLING BUDS
MY FONDNESS FOR MAY borders on idolatry. I admit that. Her touch is a breeze of sunlight. Her laughter, the pelt of a rose. That it is my...
292 views0 comments
AND MUSIC AT THE CLOSE: PARTING WORDS
IN SHAKESPEARE'S RICHARD II, Richard's uncle, "old John of Gaunt," infirm, close to death, makes an observation on the value of parting...
236 views0 comments
FOR A PENNY'S WORTH OF HAMLET
IT WAS AN AGE WHEN PLAYS, poems, and letters were written in longhand. The pen was not just metaphor. Try to imagine a slower, more even...
295 views0 comments
A CREDO FOR THOSE WHO GRIEVE
IN JANUARY, I posted an article called REFLECTING 17: THE BIG EVENT. True to its title, it looked back on the events of 2017, or at least...
425 views0 comments
LIKE ME: A VALENTINE FOR WRITERS
APPLAUSE. THERE IS NOTHING LIKE IT. Even the noblest among us, the most self-assured, modest, and self-deprecating have to admit that....
121 views0 comments
I AM LARGE. I CONTAIN MULTITUDES.
SUSAN SARANDON QUOTED HIM more than once in Bull Durham, a film about the great American pastime. He is mentioned with Thomas Wolfe in...
383 views0 comments
LETTER TO A YOUNG WRITER
A FEW DAYS AGO, I received an email from a young writer, who, after reading my last post, BLOG TO BOOK: A REPRISE, asked me three...
209 views0 comments
BLOG TO BOOK: A REPRISE
WHEN I FIRST PRINTED IT OUT it was close to seven inches deep, a mountain of excess and overreach that would eventually become my first...
107 views0 comments
WRITES
WRITES. It is a word that implies, first, an action. He writes. She writes. And so on. If we noun our verb, as Shakespeare was known to...
133 views0 comments
WRITE-DIE-OR-GO-NUMB: MY LITERARY SAINTS
THERE ARE REASONS WHY YOU WRITE. Desire. Compulsion. Necessity. The desperate must, as in I must write-die-or-go-numb. All of the above?...
591 views0 comments
TRIPPINGLY
I CONSIDERED DRAFTING a post on alliteration, but rethought that strategy. Why draw attention to a device I choose most often to avoid?...
130 views0 comments
BE NOT TOO TAME NEITHER
IN ACT 3 of Hamlet, Prince Hamlet offers instruction to a troupe of actors. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you,...
513 views0 comments
LADY LIBERTY OWES A DEBT TO MARTIN LUTHER
WITHOUT RELEVANCE, history is little more than entertainment, a benign curiosity. History can be shy about giving up its secrets. It...
71 views0 comments
THE SMALL PECULIAR ART OF HAVING, CULTIVATING, AND FINALLY MAKING A POINT
This is, or should be, item #1 in the writer's catechism. The shy, fabulous, satisfying, all-knowing point.
173 views0 comments
GETTING THE WRITER OUT OF THE WAY
IF WRITING IS ANYTHING, IT IS A PERFORMANCE. The writer is the lone figure on the stage. A world may watch, judge, applaud, hiss, throw...
120 views0 comments
AUTHOR AND FINISHER
The infinite is liberated through the finite, that is, through the absolute completeness of a line.
129 views0 comments
AN AURAL FASCINATION
Effective writing is all about fascination—being instructed and fed by it, following where it leads, submitting to its word choices . . .
95 views0 comments
CONTENT AND EXECUTION
THE DISCERNING WRITER, the writer who respects his audience and his craft will consider execution with the same weight, or gravity, he...
110 views0 comments
bottom of page