In my last posting, I wrote about how my three-year-old sees writing, and how he tried to replicate it. In so doing, I was reminded of other ways of reading. Some years ago I heard an interview of a man (shame on me for not remembering his name). He was talking about his father, an
What does writing look like to someone who cannot read or write? The image you see here was created by my three-year-old grandson, Zeke. It is his attempt to make a book. Zeke is read a lot of picture books by his parents. Moreover, his seven-year-old sister—in first grade—is excited about learning to read and write. So
Mandy, from Taos, New Mexico asks,” do you work on more than one book at a time?” The answer is yes, but in a complicated fashion. At the present moment, I am working on six books. Here is where I am in order of publication date: Catch You Later, Traitor (March 10, 2015, Algonquin) I just reviewed
I once heard a lecture about the establishment of the literary canon, those books which become the accepted milestones of literature. The lecturer went on to suggest that the primary way this happens is because these books—whatever the reason—become anchored in school curricula. Good examples of this might be Macbeth or To Kill a Mockingbird. This
Years ago, I was reading aloud a piece I had newly written to a willing listener, wanting to both hear it myself, and to get some kind of objective reaction. After reading for about half an hour, I stopped. “Well,” I asked, “What do you think?” The first thing the person said was, “There’s a dangling
A long form essay in The Economist, for Oct 11th, 2014, titled From Papyrus to Pixels, is an excellent survey of the current state of book culture. It smartly traces the evolving technology of the book, from Roman times up to the present, pointing out that the book indeed has had an evolving technology. Digital books
Humor, being funny, is an immensely subjective phenomenon. I tell a pun, you groan. You tell a joke, and I do not get it. Alternatively, someone tells a joke which offends someone else. Therefore, when it comes to writing something that is meant to be funny, it is anything but a funny situation. I would
A couple of times a year I visit my dentist for a checkup. He’s an excellent dentist, does a great job and is a really nice guy. His quirk: He obsessively tells jokes while I am sitting in his chair, mouth plugged by a variety odd shaped tubes and sharp probes. So while he, non-stop,
If you were writing a book set in the fourteenth century, you might describe a character as “whispering,” but might that character say, “whisper to me”? No, because it is not until Shakespeare used the word, in 1609 in his play, Pericles, that it enters the written language. I know this because I checked with my (online)
I have been father and stepfather to six young people, all adults now. Their work is far ranging. One is a web designer. Another a doctor. One in the music business. A tax consultant. A marine engineer. But now the youngest has decided to be a journalist, which is to say … a writer. When