Summer of ’28

When I first started writing with aspirations of professional publication, Ray Bradbury was one of the quiet giants who always captured my imagination. If I learned anything from him, it is that the poetry of an idea is more important than all the words used to execute it. He happened to be both an idea…

Kick less ass

The difference between an entertaining story and a great one is the difference between predictability and inevitability. A predictable conclusion is one where you guess with a fair amount of accuracy what’s going to happen at each milestone leading to the conclusion. An inevitable story is one where you know the outcome will be positive…

Lovecraft was wrong

All of my books are packed in boxes stacked in a container sitting on a cargo ship enroute to New Zealand. I’ve been pining for a good read and can’t stand the idea of staring at my iPad screen reading reformatted Kindle pages. I stopped today at Borderlands, the sci-fi and fantasy book store in…

Surrealist fiction lives!

My friend, Erik Secker, has reached that most special of milestones for a writer: his first published story, “The Red Door.” You can find it in the current online edition of Farrago’s Wainscot, a “Gallery of Weirds.” I love this story, not just for its clean, neatly colored writing, its excellent sense of place and…

Ciao, Sir Clarke

Two of the greatest science-fiction novels I’ve ever read (and would argue have ever been written) are Childhood’s End and Rendezvous with Rama. Arthur C. Clarke wrote both of them, among dozens of other stories and novels that, through the 50s, 60, and 70s, endowed to pulp sci-fi a respectable, even haughty, mien. I remember…

The Superhero’s Closet

At long last, my novel, The Superhero’s Closet, is going to print. Since I haven’t yet built a promotional site for the book, I just wanted to share the good news and what’s happening as I write. Today, I invited professional actor/model Ronnie Kerr to pose for cover photography. Local photographer Michael Sexton will take…

Books

Seems like I don’t read nearly as many novels as I used to. For a writer, this may seem like some secret shame: a decreasing dependency on the written word is like an “actor” slumming on TV. I won’t bitch and moan about how most modern literature bores me to tears, but I will say…