Archive for October 2024
A Modest Beginning
Last night I was at a gathering at my friend Byron’s house. He had lured me down the opposite end of our tiny state with the promise of a firepit and good bourbon. Like most Rhode Islanders, I balk at driving more than twenty minutes anywhere, but my Long Suffering Wife pointed out that…
Read MoreGiving bad advice to a good friend.
I was flattered when a good friend of mine, a professor and a street brawler for democracy in strange foreign lands, made all the stranger in 1997, asked me to read his first manuscript. I can not adequately convey how difficult it is to write your first novel. They’re easy to start but they are…
Read MoreBVARS on the water.
The park ranger looked at me, she was trying to find a nice way of asking if we knew what we were doing. It was her first time dealing with the Blackstone Valley Aquatic Recreation Society, a collection made up almost entirely of men old enough to know better than to do the stupid…
Read MoreLen Deighton
I don’t read much new fiction anymore. Especially not stuff in the genre that I write. I live in mortal fear of unintentionally copying someone else’s work. I suspect that all mystery fiction is derivative at this point. When I need to scratch my fiction reading itch, I tend to favor things in different…
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