There are more movies about exorcisms that any one person could ever possibly see; I know, because I’ve watched a lot of them during the years I worked on my upcoming novel Dandelion (pre-order here). This is a modern genre, too; it started in 1973, with the release of the grandaddy of them all, The Exorcist, so there are no … Read More
Religion and racism: two things that help create evil in my novel Dandelion.
Of my thirteen prior novels, eight of them were set in the American South. It’s where I grew up and lived for the first forty years of my life, from Tennessee down to the Gulf Coast. It’s a place I know better than any other. And because of that, I believe that it’s impossible to write about the south in … Read More
Only Cowards Blame the Music
When I was a teenager, my parents banned from me listening to KISS. So of course I listened to KISS every chance I got. Their rationale: someone with religious authority warned them that the band’s name stood for “Knights in Satan’s Service.” The fact that they were men who wore makeup didn’t help. And in the deep south of the … Read More
Rant: the Penn State Penalties
I’ve been following the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case since it broke. The Freeh report, which explicitly blamed Sandusky’s continued ability to molest children on the deliberate actions of those in power at Penn State, including legendary football coach Joe Paterno (arguably the most powerful man on campus), led to unprecedented penalties against the university and its football program. And … Read More
Less Than Meets the Eye
Recently a friend mentioned that she loved the Transformers movie, and I said I disagreed. When she pressed me for an explanation I demurred, for a couple of reasons: I wanted to marshal my thoughts with more clarity, and I didn’t want to sully an otherwise delightful group lunch with what could easily become a semi-coherent rant. But yes, I … Read More