bookfraud

Somebody on this blog asked me what I did for a living, and speculated that I am a dentist. Not so. I probably would have been an evil (not to mention incompetent) dentist — not a torturer, more like a nitrous oxide junkie who tries to fool around with the dental hygenist. I am told [...]

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Last Sunday, full of caffeine, I was all ready to blog. Like a maniac! I was going to write a brilliant reply to the NYT Book Review’s “Under 40″ influences piece, which would outline writer jealousy (from a 40-year-old whose literary influences are of interest to nobody), and why it’s often fruitless to ask a [...]

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An article in the New York Times details our secret sides, the alternate personalities we create in response to trauma or to hide unsavory behavior. Family men (and it does seem to be mostly men) by all appearances, but with second wives, addiction to coke, frequent flyer points at the local brothel. Typical stuff. I [...]

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A friend of Wife just turned 33. It was an anniversary they refer to as the “Jesus year.” Christ lived until age 33, and we know what happened then. Another King, Elvis Presley, would have turned 70 today. Blows the mind. Elvis died at age 42, though the paramedics didn’t recognize him, such was the [...]

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In response to an earlier post, Peter makes an interesting comment about the “professionalization” of writing fiction.” It’s not the things one does to get published that seems to bother him, but rather the fact these steps have been packaged and sold, no different than Anthony Robbins hawking Personal Power or your typical infomercial for [...]

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Last evening, as I was trying to enjoy the sublime pleasures of the WWE, Wife dropped a pile of papers beside me — the AWP conference guide. This was a transparent ploy by brilliant & loving Wife to motivate me. My novel has been making the rounds at publishers, with the responses ranging from “We [...]

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At brunch with a non-writing friend, Wife & I waxed non-poetic about the fiction-writing business. Eventually, the topic turned to schmoozing. “You don’t look like you’d be good at that,” he said to me. “Well, duh,” I snarled back. That’s why so many of us write fiction — we grew up as outcasts and crawled [...]

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