Literary Abominations Newsletter

The time has come. There’s too much going on not to have a mailing list and a newsletter, so I’ve taken the plunge. Newsletter readers will get quarterly (and sometimes more-than) updates and general goofiness from me delivered directly to their email boxes. Two weeks later, an edited version of …

Playing Jazz With Words

You hear a lot of talk of “discovery writers” and “outliners” in the writing world. The “pantsers” and the “plotters,” respectively. It’s true that there are a lot of people that fall into both categories–including many of my friends–and human nature loves dichotomies, but I’ve never fit comfortably either, and …

To America, On The Occasion of Your Birthday

Neurological pharmacology–a fancy way of saying “what drugs do to brains”–is a subject with which I have a special fascination. Some of them accentuate specific aspects of personality, some create hallucinations and religious experience, some relieve depression, some kick the sex drive or the bonding drive into high gear. In …