Longtime readers of this blog will know I have a somewhat unresolved relationship with my home region of West Tennessee. It’s not the most scenic area: the state of Tennessee slopes downhill from Appalachia in the east, so the western end is the lowest, muddiest and flattest part. Except for Memphis, there are no notable cities (I suppose you could … Read More
So, at last we meet…
One massive fringe benefit of teaching at the Wisconsin Writers Institute this past weekend was that I finally got to meet my agent Marlene Stringer in person. That’s right: although she’s been my agent for five years and listened patiently while I whined, kvetched, bitched and wheedled, we’ve never actually met. Now we have, and here’s the photo to prove … Read More
Fatherhood, Spenser style: Early Autumn
Since the death of Robert B. Parker in January 2010, I’ve been re-reading his Spenser novels. The earliest ones, written in the 1970s and 80s, staked out his moral as well as physical territory, revolving around ideas of traditional masculinity in conflict with the modern world. And in 1981’s Early Autumn, Spenser demonstrates how his code is built and applied … Read More
"The most demanding form after poetry…"*
(*the short story, according to William Faulkner.) For the first time in a long while, I’m working on a new short story. When I had my epiphany moment in 1996 and decided it was time to get real about this whole writing thing, I started with short stories. For a while I wrote a new one every week, as if … Read More
The soul of rock and roll: Eddie & the Cruisers, the novel
There haven’t been very many good novels about popular music. It could be due to the inherent contradictory nature of writing in concrete terms about something so ephemeral, even when the writers are also musicians. Music is such an individual experience that it can be daunting to find the absolutes in it. I know, because I’ve tried: my novel The … Read More
Interview with Liane Merciel, author of The River Kings’ Road
The River Kings’ Road, the first novel by Liane Merciel, introduces her world of Ithelas. It’s the tale of a knight caught between conflicting desires, a poor woman struggling to save a child, and the fate of kingdoms hanging in the balance. Liane was kind enough to answer some questions about the creation of her world and her writing process. … Read More
Giants of West Tennessee: Jesse Hill Ford, part 2
NOTE: This is an occasional series about notable figures from my home region. These are personal reminiscences and opinions; where available, I’ll include links so interested readers can find out more. Part 1 of this entry can be found here. Even as a child I wanted to be a writer. Unfortunately, I lived in a town where literacy was viewed … Read More
The Holy Goof and my own Dean Moriarty(s)
The Holy Goof by the late William Plummer is a biography of one of the greatest literary figures to never write anything substantial–his best-known work is a fragment of a letter. But Sherlock Holmes’ words to Watson might also describe Neal Cassady’s relationship to Jack Kerouac (On the Road), Allen Ginsberg (Howl), Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) … Read More
"The work is play for mortal stakes"*
In 1988, I lived in Huntsville, Alabama working for Olan Mills Portrait Studios as a traveling photographer, a job with slightly less dignity than scraping up road kill. I also wrote novels on big yellow legal pads, that I subsequently typed up when I had the chance (on a typewriter, even). My stuff was terrible; I had no sense of … Read More
How weird is too weird?
A reader asked me, “How about how you differentiate between an exciting new idea and something that’s just plain weird? Have you ever written anything that you loved, but others didn’t quite get?” First I’d like to quote from my favorite rejection letter: “The majority of our editorial readers thought this story was just too odd for their tastes; it … Read More