One of the questions I am often asked is, “Do you get your characters and stories from real life?” The answer is partly. An early book, No More Magic, had its inception at my oldest son’s fifth grade birthday party. It was a super hero costume party, and we held it in a park. One boy
Dear Loyal Reader: I have written about the opening sentence of a story. It can be (should be) like a key that opens a box of treasures. But the last sentence of a book is equally important. If the first sentence opens things, the last sentence should close things—like a lock—with a satisfying click. So,
POLONIUS: What do you read, My Lord? HAMLET: Words, words, words. It is often claimed that the English language has the largest vocabulary, in part because it has taken in words from other languages. (Thus SKIPPER, the person in charge of a boat, comes from the Dutch language. CAPTAIN, from old French.) It has also been
Dear Reader, If you subscribe to my newsletter, you received a request today to help me add to my to-be-read pile as we approach this long winter. Please enter your recommendation in the comments below. If you don’t yet receive my occasional newsletter, you can sign up for it here. There’s always news of what
Someone sent this story to me. I don’t know if it’s true (I hope it is) but in any case it’s a wonderful story about stories. At 40, Franz Kafka (1883–1924), who never married and had no children, was walking through a park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she
Word for the day: Mononymous, writers using one name. Goodreads ran a list of the most popular mononymous writers. Not sure why, but they did. But it was, as this mononymous writer can attest, impressive. Here’s the list in order of popularity. The Republic. Ethics. Candide. Confucius. Poppy. Now, that’s rather rare company for my mouse
The Oxford Unabridged Dictionary says the word “title” is “Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. French title. Originally classical Latin titulus.” A title is a key part of any piece of writing, the handshake, if you will, by which you are introduced to a book. Whether you go beyond the handshake is another matter,
When I was growing up in New York City, there was an area along Fourth Avenue which was called “Book Row.” It existed from the 1890s until the 1960’s. Over its six blocks stretch there were some thirty-six bookstores, mostly selling used books. As a teenager I used to wander about there, beguiled, looking at,
My wife (Linda) and I are going to do something we have only talked about for years: A vacation. Mind, we live in a log house high (9,000 feet up) in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, a place where many people come to have their vacations. Medicine Bow National Forest, The Zirkel Wilderness, and Steamboat Springs
I had just completed my first semester at Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It was time to go home in NYC for Christmas break (six hundred miles by the most direct route). My pals and I decided to hitchhike home. I cannot explain the reason for wanting to do this idiotic thing, save that