Author post To Lie for Truth’s Sake: the Novelist’s Conundrum 20 Apr 201820 Apr 2018 The job of a fiction writer is to lie. Still, if it were only to lie, you could dedicate yourself to advertising or politics instead, and accept troubled sleep as…
Announcement Crime and Punishment, American-Style 31 Mar 201831 Mar 2018 Lock the doors and latch the windows: it's time to read more noir--if you dare! Yes, I've got another story published in Switchblade: an Anthology of Noir, available now for Kindle,…
Author post… Quickie Book Review: Salman Rushdie’s “Fury” 24 Mar 201824 Mar 2018 Just finished Salman Rushdie's Fury. This was my first taste of Rushdie, and it disappointed me. The protagonist is the usual brilliant academic undergoing a midlife crisis. (True, he is…
event Killin’ ‘Em at Noir Night 19 Oct 2017 Here's a pair of pix from yesterday evening's "Noir Night Assaults the Battery," a co-production (however small) by Crow Tree Books and Switchblade Magazine. I read "The Price of a…
Announcement… Voices in the Dark 28 Sep 20171 Oct 2017 Will you be in Los Angeles on October 18th? If you will be, lucky you: I am inviting you and yours to a reading of noir and crime fiction at…
Author post Getting Over Yourself: Advice for Novelists 17 Sep 201720 Oct 2017 There are many ways to become a good writer, but one of the best ways to become a great one–besides giving yourself a thorough grounding in the mechanics of language–is…
Author post True and False Test 16 Jul 201717 Jul 2017 Marianne Moore once wrote that poetry consisted in "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," which is perhaps as good a definition as any. I'd say it applies to fiction…
Author post Cruel Graces 11 Jul 201730 Sep 2017 The grace of a cat is rooted in cruelty. Not just the cruelty of the kill itself, which, if you abstract it from the pain it imposes, is beautiful as…
Author post Stranger than Fiction 6 Jul 20176 Jul 2017 Sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction, and you have to leave some of it out to make the generous lie of writing at all believable. A good example is…
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