Browse Topics

Kicking The Corpse, Or Is This Love?

I’m having a hard time writing this. I think I’ve figured out why. I want it to be a eulogy, but I can’t stop kicking the corpse. I want you to care that another American newspaper has expired. But I wonder if I care.

Spies Don’t Kill Each Other

Fletcher E. Driscoll felt the day getting warmer. He was in the back seat of a Land Rover, blindfolded. It must be noon, he thought, bouncing along what seemed to be a crude jungle road.

Tall Tales, But Short

I went to a side show at the county fair. It was housed in a small trailer with a South Sea Island scene painted on the side. “Paradise on Earth,” the sign proclaimed. So I paid my quarter and went into a bare room with a table in the middle.

An Interview With David Stewart

I was hoping she might tell us, “Wilmington’s OK, nothing’s going to happen.” But, instead, she made that startling prediction. It was on the 5th of January, 1975, and she said within a year there’s going to be a major earthquake in the Wilmington region.

Selected Poems

Hot Dogs

I was compiling a list of what I would take with me in the coffin when along came a dog wearing a hat.

at work

Publishing, Hopefully Not Perishing

The Small Press Movement

I can’t remember the first time I heard someone say that the conglomerates (giant U.S. corporations like Xerox) were buying out the big New York publishing houses, the ones that 20 or so years ago were a fairly reliable place to publish a first novel, a well-written book, something that might someday be known as a great book, as “literature.”

This Message Was Brought To You By . . .

I make most of my money from advertising. I know, I know. A lower form of enterprise is hard for many to imagine. Especially for a writer. Well, I’ll tell you this: for a writer unencumbered by ideological purity, it can be a damn fine business.

Right Livelihood

Guilt And Money

For me, business and livelihood means trying to pay my bills by doing what I enjoy doing and would probably do anyway, even if I had a more conventional job.