writing

  • Write is Might: Voice of a (de)Generation

    Write is Might: Voice of a (de)Generation

    Like every other writer I know, I’m the voice of my generation. Apparently, my voice just isn’t loud enough to overcome our collective screams of desperation. That said, I feel obligated to continue trying, partly because I have the rare privilege of being a writer with a day job, which is being a writer—but with some…

  • ’Tis a strange serpent – Drinking in Literature

    ’Tis a strange serpent – Drinking in Literature

    From Viking magical mead poetry to Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, here’s how writers have encapsulated an eternal boozy truth Source: ’Tis a strange serpent – 10 of the most entertaining drinking bouts in literature | Books | The Guardian I’ve written a few drunk scenes — pretty much any action in Quantum Deadline is…

  • Ink-Stained Wretch from Stigmata

    Creative types have an interesting relationship to notions of ownership – from the copyright that protects their work to the semi-sacred spaces in which they create it. Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own was the early 20th century prototype for this type of declarative claim for personal space, literal and figurative, feminist and otherwise.…

  • Rags to Romance: A chat with hybrid author Bella Andre

    Sonoma writer’s seven-figure print deal Like all media-based industries, publishing has seen its share of digital disruption. Unlike the music and film biz, however, the seismic shifts caused by Kindles, iPads and their lot have had direct benefit for the creative people behind the work. Writers, who often have stopped just short of human sacrifice…

  • How to Waste a Notebook: The Waste Books of Lichtenberg

    How to Waste a Notebook: The Waste Books of Lichtenberg

    I’ve been keeping notebooks since I was 14 years-old. These aren’t diaries or journals, just the workaday jottings of stray thoughts and “brilliant” notions, occasional phone numbers and grocery lists of the past 26 years. Here are some of them: Originally, my preferred notebook was a 4×6-inch spiral-bound (side not top) Mead, which would fit…

  • Lost & Found Pages

    When I lived in Los Angeles, I would frequently discover stray screenplay pages littering the streets. I saved them all and with my ArtsID co-host Gretchen Giles, am pleased to present a staged reading of these pages, complete with cast and soundtrack provided by the fine folks of KRCB 91 FM, Cotati, CA. Since I…

  • Lost & Found Pages

    When I lived in Los Angeles, I would frequently discover stray screenplay pages littering the streets. I saved them all and with my ArtsID co-host Gretchen Giles, am pleased to present a staged reading of these pages, complete with cast and soundtrack provided by the fine folks of KRCB 91 FM, Cotati, CA. Since I…

  • Why We Write: From Bylines to Blue Streaks

    Last year, a colleague of mine at the Future Journalism Project (a collective of reporters, editors and documentarians exploring “disruption, opportunity and innovation in journalism”) received a reader query that asked: “What is it about journalism that you love? Why did you become a journalist?” The FJP’s brain-trust, Michael Cervieri, turned the question over to…

  • You Are Not an Also-Ran

    The dictionary app on my phone has a word of the day. Today, it’s “also-ran.” What a way to start the day. The app might as well have offered up “existential crisis” or “loser” instead of playing cute with the sports vernacular. Ever since HAL in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” there’s been a pervasive notion…