One of my favorite weekends of the year, it’s that time again for the SC Book Festival, an event that’s always been so good for my writing career. 2013 marks my fourth appearance as either a featured author, panelist or moderator. At this year’s edition you’ll be able to find me schmoozing tonight at the […]
After a few weeks have passed, I can tell you I like the movie even less now than I did when writing the shiv to the ribs as published below. Now here’s a scientist’s review, and after reading this equally disdainful piece (it’s full of math you can skim if that doesn’t interest you), I […]
The clinical: after twelve and a half years of serious writing, a decent amount of artistic success, day-job burnout, the recent death of a close friend, and a raging desire to begin Novel 8 a/k/a Novel 2013 a/k/a DIXIANA, I needed a break from the grind and obligations of my daily life. I decided the […]
Not Fade Away, Sopranos mastermind David Chase’s (seemingly) autobiographical, literally sepia-toned flashback to the time of rock and roll ascendance that came between the assassinations of JFK, MLK and RFK, has to be most dramatically inert and unsurprising coming of age drama I think I may have ever seen. Seriously.
Derek Cinefrance’s gloomy relationship mopefest Blue Valentine (2011), while not a terrifically uplifting sit, nonetheless showed great promise in the filmmaker’s patience and willingness to let depth of character drive the narrative of his film. Cinefrance’s sensational and moving new offering The Place Beyond the Pines, currently in theatrical release, not only builds on the potential […]
On my childhood vacations to exotic Myrtle Beach, at least once during the weeklong stay I’d always suffer a ‘giant wave’ nightmare: I’m sitting and playing on the beach (as I’d done for real all day long) when I realize a looming, enormous wave’s about to crash down onto the beach, and me. The Impossible, written […]
Tonight at Columbia’s impressive Tapp’s Art Center, a new writing group here in town makes its first public offering with appearances by four local scribes: yours truly, Lorna Festa, Michael Spawn, and Janna McMahan, who’ll be appearing in support of her latest novel Anonymity.
One of the most complimentary reviews yet for Fellow Traveler comes from longtime Deadhead author, musician, Grateful Dead Hour and Tales from the Golden Road radio host David Gans, posted tonight on his blog. A choice pull quote begins the review: “Fellow Traveler is as worthy a document of the latter-day Grateful Dead experience as any I’ve read, fictional […]
Sort of like a state of the state/union address? Not so much, this; nothing so dramatic. No, at the beginning of a new creative season this is merely an update regarding the core of my creative output: my various completed novel manuscripts. As I’ve been on a what’s become a two week break from working […]
Six weeks after my agent Michelle L Johnson of Inklings Literary got an exciting flurry of new MS requests, it looks like DOGS OF PARSONS HOLLOW has pulled rejections from two of the four editors who took a peek. The upside? The other two that are still active are with the bigger publishers of the […]
