Author Archive

Short Stories Are Forgotten Grist for the Hollywood Mill

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January means it’s award season for the movie industry. As the nominations and trophies are being passed out, it’s a good time to note how the history of Hollywood is inextricably linked to the history of literature.

12 Books To Help You Survive 2017 And the Trump Era

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Many of us will need to cope with, resist, or try to understand (or all of the above) Trump in 2017. So, below are 12 books—one per month—that can help with those unexpected projects.

Trump’s Words Helped Him Win—And That’s Troubling

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The effects of this year’s presidential election, exhausting and exhaustive as it was, will reverberate locally, nationally and globally for decades. This is true of all presidential elections, but the contrast between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton could not have been more pronounced.

What Would Orwell Make of This Election?

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Orwellian. The word has become a catch-all describing an invisible yet ubiquitous bureaucracy whose tentacles influence every corner of citizens’ lives. Conservatives and liberals use the term with disgust. Would that it meant something else, if only because it identifies the author with his best-known—if not best—work, 1984, while

End of Storytelling Era, Farewell to Vin Scully

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This week a certain kind of storytelling will come to an end. Vin Scully, who began broadcasting Dodgers games in 1950, will retire at the age of 88. Yes, he was once a prodigy, announcing major league baseball games at just 22 years old.

Post-Presidency Obama Should Take the Road Less Travelled

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Some time in the next few years President Obama will write a book that looks back on his presidency. The book will be much anticipated, it will sell many copies, presidential scholars will critique it and Beltway pundits will argue about it.

When He Was King: The Words and Wisdom of Muhammad Ali

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Standing in line at the grocery store the other day, I counted four magazines the published special issues to commemorate the remarkable life of Muhammad Ali, who died on June 3 at 74 years old.

Writer-In-Chief: As a Man of Letters, Obama Will Be Missed

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In the era of the 24-hour news cycle and ubiquitous WiFi, being a good writer would not seem to be much of an asset to a politician. A commanding TV presence and social media savvy are at least as important. It wasn’t always this way, of course. Until the

Which Candidate Will Write the Theme for the 2016 Election?

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Political campaigns, like novels, have a beginning, middle, and end. Hard as it may be to believe, we are still in Act Two of the story that will come to be the 2016 presidential election. Act One is comprised of everything that happens in an election prior to the

Only A Novelist Will Be Able To Make Sense of This Election

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Years from now, the uncertainty and accompanying anxiety many of us have about the current political season may be displaced by different, more complicated emotions. Such perspective is cold comfort to the millions who are fearful of a possible Donald Trump presidency. For four years we have known that