writing – The Dilettante's Field Manual

An Homage to Invasives

“Perceptive Travel” recently published an adapted chapter from my upcoming book, “The Lost Continent.”

The Steeple Chase – part III

The final post in the series, here are tips for running a Steeple Chase Exercise on your writing in the real world.

Old books and ecosystem services

How libraries are like coral reefs.

A visual storyteller’s guide to active consumption

How to keep yourself on the active side of the consumption equation.

What to read this summer: recommendations from writers who teach

A pair of fiction writers and teachers offer their summer reading picks.

Balancing career and calling: insights from three writers

Balancing writing and literary careers can be precarious and challenging. Here three writers give their take on how they wrangle a “bi-vocational” existence.

A bullshit artist looks at forty

Here I am back in my hometown of Chicago, slouching toward the birth of the new year, the year in which I’ll hit the big four-oh. Maybe it’s too soon to start in with the hand-wringing that usually accompanies the reaching of the rough middle point of one’s journey across this great green and blueContinue reading “A bullshit artist looks at forty”

Where does it come from?

That’s a question about creativity raised by the film “Starting Out in the Evening.” It follows an aging and mostly forgotten literary novelist who is forced from his routine when a young graduate student enters his life, ostensibly to research her thesis. It is a wooden and stilted film with some (mostly) unintentional awkward moments,Continue reading “Where does it come from?”

Creating a sense of place in screenplays, fiction and comics

Any story needs a sense of place. This is what keeps a narrative from happening inside of a void. A sense of place is different from setting. Setting is merely a point on the globe. A backdrop. A sense of place has sights, sounds, smell, dirt that feels a certain way when crumbled in yourContinue reading “Creating a sense of place in screenplays, fiction and comics”