James D. McCallister

author of the Edgewater County series

Poem of the Day: Kenneth Patchen

A New Series Highlighting Interesting Poetry The year started out with me having taken a break from poetry, both reading and writing it. For months my eyes belonged almost solely to Henry Miller, as I finally found time to get through The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy as well as the other, lesser know works like Big […]

Quote of the Day

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because […]

Quote of the Day

As man conducts his affairs, he goes on living in view of his orientation, of the repertory of his convictions, and all his acts—and, therefore, his whole life—will, in the case of fictitious orientation, be themselves fictitious. And, in fact, if you analyze your own situation, you will note that the type of orientation in […]

Quote of the Day

One person with indigenous inner strength exercises a great calming effect on panic among people around him. This is what our society needs—not new ideas and inventions, important as these are, and not geniuses and supermen, but persons who can be, that is, persons who have a center of strength within themselves.   —Rollo May, Man’s Search […]

Are You All In?

A Resonant Spiritual Message to Start Your Day  

My Writing Journey, Pt 7: I Grieve These Enormous Endings

Local Author Ponders Completion of a Life Project The title of this piece, a snatch of phrase taken from my poet’s notebook, popped in my head one day and I wrote it down. That’s what a writer does. A wise one, anyway.

My Great Year

Local Author Reports on 2021, A Most Prosperous Year Nothing earth-shattering or tl;dr here, merely a note celebrating what turned out as one of the best years I’ve ever lived. I reached a level both of personal best in terms of my health and physical well-being, as well as business success at our little hippie […]

Today’s Thought on Poetry

Today’s thought on poetry comes courtesy the realm of philosophy: “What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music…. And people flock around the poet and say: ‘Sing again soon’—that is, […]

SHOPKEEP Excerpt: Masterpiece Day

A Day-and-Date Drop of A Key Memoir Chapter Two years after the vehicular tragedy which derailed my life psychically if not quite physically, I had “gotten on with it,” as they say. By the time of October 23, 1989, I had recovered enough to again hold enormous dreams in my heart and mind, and although […]

Review: DUNE (Streaming)

Latest Adaptation of Frank Herbert Hard SF Classic is Unmitigated Disaster Story is everything, particularly when it comes to the so-called ‘hero’s journey.’ And any movie that doesn’t tell a complete journey… is the first episode of a streaming series. In Dune’s case it’s certainly not a cinematic epic befitting a hard science fiction classic […]