The economics and financial strains of our global pandemic crisis cannot be avoided. We’re all feeling it. If we’re fortunate enough to be employed, our situations have still changed. Many of our day jobs have transitioned to remote-location jobs. Except for journalists, by and large, writing has always been a remote job, so many of us already had a knack for adapting. If you write fiction, you may have already been able to write your stories without ever leaving home, … Read More »

Lost in the murk of pandemic this April is our annual Earth Day. It shouldn’t be. The health crisis is the new baseline for discussion of almost everything, including environmental issues, and by extension, writing about environment. We all want COVID-19 to just go away and stop killing and let us get back to the business of living. Yet a captivating side effect of the virus has arisen. Earth, it seems, has gotten a chance to draw a breath. In … Read More »

We’ve entered a sudden new reality which will dictate our lives for a while. Certainly for weeks, maybe months. Maybe more. A switch flipped and we find ourselves in strange times, careful of how we move, touch, work, eat, and—well, just about everything. Many of us are self-quarantining. We think about what it all means. Many of us will express those thoughts in our fiction and poetry. A classic novel of the 19th century provides one writer’s unflinching approach to … Read More »

I once wrote something pretty far out there. Actually, a lot more than once. One online reviewer found that particular tale entertaining but criticized its “supernatural” elements. That left me scratching my head. What supernatural elements? I had taken pains to explain the farfetched stuff with real-world underpinnings. Science, you know. Sure, I was asking the reader to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride, but every little detail was possible within current scientific theory, if not practicability. So let me … Read More »

One hundred years ago, in January, 1920, Woodrow Wilson was President. World War I was two years in the past. The 18th Amendment, prohibiting “intoxicating liquors,” was the law of the land. The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, lay eight months in the future. Seems like ancient history, but there are people alive today who were alive then. The world was on the cusp of the new. The quill had given way to the typewriter, which would … Read More »

My town, Maitland, is not large. Neither is Maitland Public Library. But it’s our library and it’s a treasure, a beating heart of community fabric from the get-go. And in this season of giving thanks, it occurs to me that a ridiculously high number of my most satisfying experiences as a writer have taken place within its venerable walls, and within those of other public libraries as well. Maitland Public launched with 360 books donated by Clara Dommerich in 1896, … Read More »