
Russians, Ukrainians (And Some Others) Fight to Rescue Cats in New York
While the war between Russia and Ukraine continues, here in New York, some people from those countries are united with a common goal. Along with a few other New Yorkers on the team, they rescue cats facing dangerous life on the streets. The organization that binds them together, Stray’s Hope for Life, includes around ten foster volunteers on Staten Island and in Brooklyn who are bent on finding homes for 60 to 70 cats at any given point in time.

Are You Prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse?
Zombies have been on my mind lately partly because I’m enjoying “The Last of Us,” the fungus-pandemic horror series on HBO, and partly because of something that showed up in my inbox. Many data tidbits are pushed to me, so they don’t always stop me in my scrolling tracks. But this one did just that. Did you know that more than one in 10 Americans think a zombie apocalypse is inevitable? Among the believers, more than half apparently believe it’s coming in the next 30 years.

Sharing the Love, or Stealing?
Say you have a friend named Monique who’s lost her job. You know she can barely scrape together enough change to pay the rent, and she really needs some positive distraction. You give her the passcode to your Netflix account so she can get some laughs out of “The Extraordinary Attorney Woo.” Heck, you’ve already given the code to some of your other friends, who have in turn shared their Apple TV+ and HBOMax account codes with you.

Will The Truth Set Us Free In These Polarized Times?
Deep in the heart of Becky Chambers’ award-winning “Wayfarers” sci-fi novel trilogy there’s mention of a show that changed the course of relations between regular humans and some sentient beings on another planet. At first, any meaningful friendship between the two types of “creatures” was impossible. They kept their distance. But then they started to reach the middle ground after some entertaining content emerged in which an alien and a human became friends. It grew wildly popular, and after 10 years, the two civilizations warmed to each other, turning the course of history.

Why They Die — Mastering the Art of Killing Off Characters in Fiction
“He’s scared to look at me in the eyes and start to understand what’s about to happen to him. You know, he picked the wrong family. We’re not scared of conflict. We’re not running. We’re coming at him.”
Those are the words of Steve Goncalves, speaking to CNN’s Jim Sciutto about the alleged murderer of four University of Idaho students. Among them was Gonclaves’ daughter, Kaylee.
This recent example of senseless violence is horrifying, and it’s so easy to get behind Goncalves’ rage and overpowering need for justice. And at the same time, we can be haunted by other forms of death, which might seem quiet by comparison but are devastating.

Love and Caring in a World of Senseless Tragedies
In early November I was hit by a car. At the time, I was walking down a residential street in the early evening, wearing an orange jacket and crossing a well-lit intersection. I was thrown onto the entrance ramp of a highway running down the side of the Hudson River, from The Bronx into Manhattan.

California Romance and Culinary Delights — The Making of ‘Casserole Courtship’
What do you get when you marry up one of California’s gorgeous Central Coast beaches with scrumptious food and romance? In the hands of Elizabeth Guider, those elements have become a page-turner novel called “The Casserole Courtship.” Her seasoned, realistic approach to fiction explores how some pretty fascinating people find love — or not.

Elves and Magpies: The Mysterious Ways Writers Tap Into Rich Veins of Inspiration
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the pods of people who support and sustain our lives. Pods of family members, pods of friends, and (in my case) pods of people who are obsessed with writing fiction. The writer group is made up of people that I know personally and others whose work I admire and who give me a greater understanding of the craft.
I turned to the writer pod recently to gather some thoughts about an enigma when it comes to fiction. It involves a question that writers get asked all the time but many of us find it hard to answer: Where do you get your ideas?

The Comparison Trap: How to Get Back on Track When Others Succeed
There once was a belly dancer named Carmen. She wowed crowds from Coney Island to Cairo. Really hot men dropped at her feet when she did the Turkish Figure Eight. They didn’t call her Magic Hips for nothin’. Another dancer named Stardust won the International Belly Dance Championship, and Carmen was back a ways in the rankings. She just couldn’t curb her sense of despair and jealousy. She felt like calling the whole shimmy-thing off. Maybe she should just become a bookkeeper for her shady uncle’s dump truck biz like he always wanted.
My fictional Carmen just danced into a very particular circle of hell: comparing herself to someone with similar aspirations who scored a coveted victory.

‘Where Then Is Paradise?’ — Reflections on Asteroids, Putin, Scarcity, and Love
You may have heard the news that scientists uncovered new understandings about the asteroid that hit planet Earth 66 million years ago, destroying three-quarters of all plant and animal species, including dinosaurs.
Two researchers from the University of Michigan initially reported the findings in NGU Advances. And a later report in The Washington Postdescribed the asteroid this way: “The researchers drew on previous research and assumed the meteor had a diameter of 8.7 miles and a density of about 165 pounds per cubic foot — roughly the weight of an average adult male crammed within a volume the size of a milk crate.”

Russians, Ukrainians (And Some Others) Fight to Rescue Cats in New York
While the war between Russia and Ukraine continues, here in New York, some people from those countries are united with a common goal. Along with a few other New Yorkers on the team, they rescue cats facing dangerous life on the streets. The organization that binds them together, Stray’s Hope for Life, includes around ten foster volunteers on Staten Island and in Brooklyn who are bent on finding homes for 60 to 70 cats at any given point in time.

Are You Prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse?
Zombies have been on my mind lately partly because I’m enjoying “The Last of Us,” the fungus-pandemic horror series on HBO, and partly because of something that showed up in my inbox. Many data tidbits are pushed to me, so they don’t always stop me in my scrolling tracks. But this one did just that. Did you know that more than one in 10 Americans think a zombie apocalypse is inevitable? Among the believers, more than half apparently believe it’s coming in the next 30 years.

Sharing the Love, or Stealing?
Say you have a friend named Monique who’s lost her job. You know she can barely scrape together enough change to pay the rent, and she really needs some positive distraction. You give her the passcode to your Netflix account so she can get some laughs out of “The Extraordinary Attorney Woo.” Heck, you’ve already given the code to some of your other friends, who have in turn shared their Apple TV+ and HBOMax account codes with you.

Will The Truth Set Us Free In These Polarized Times?
Deep in the heart of Becky Chambers’ award-winning “Wayfarers” sci-fi novel trilogy there’s mention of a show that changed the course of relations between regular humans and some sentient beings on another planet. At first, any meaningful friendship between the two types of “creatures” was impossible. They kept their distance. But then they started to reach the middle ground after some entertaining content emerged in which an alien and a human became friends. It grew wildly popular, and after 10 years, the two civilizations warmed to each other, turning the course of history.

Why They Die — Mastering the Art of Killing Off Characters in Fiction
“He’s scared to look at me in the eyes and start to understand what’s about to happen to him. You know, he picked the wrong family. We’re not scared of conflict. We’re not running. We’re coming at him.”
Those are the words of Steve Goncalves, speaking to CNN’s Jim Sciutto about the alleged murderer of four University of Idaho students. Among them was Gonclaves’ daughter, Kaylee.
This recent example of senseless violence is horrifying, and it’s so easy to get behind Goncalves’ rage and overpowering need for justice. And at the same time, we can be haunted by other forms of death, which might seem quiet by comparison but are devastating.

Love and Caring in a World of Senseless Tragedies
In early November I was hit by a car. At the time, I was walking down a residential street in the early evening, wearing an orange jacket and crossing a well-lit intersection. I was thrown onto the entrance ramp of a highway running down the side of the Hudson River, from The Bronx into Manhattan.

California Romance and Culinary Delights — The Making of ‘Casserole Courtship’
What do you get when you marry up one of California’s gorgeous Central Coast beaches with scrumptious food and romance? In the hands of Elizabeth Guider, those elements have become a page-turner novel called “The Casserole Courtship.” Her seasoned, realistic approach to fiction explores how some pretty fascinating people find love — or not.

Elves and Magpies: The Mysterious Ways Writers Tap Into Rich Veins of Inspiration
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the pods of people who support and sustain our lives. Pods of family members, pods of friends, and (in my case) pods of people who are obsessed with writing fiction. The writer group is made up of people that I know personally and others whose work I admire and who give me a greater understanding of the craft.
I turned to the writer pod recently to gather some thoughts about an enigma when it comes to fiction. It involves a question that writers get asked all the time but many of us find it hard to answer: Where do you get your ideas?

The Comparison Trap: How to Get Back on Track When Others Succeed
There once was a belly dancer named Carmen. She wowed crowds from Coney Island to Cairo. Really hot men dropped at her feet when she did the Turkish Figure Eight. They didn’t call her Magic Hips for nothin’. Another dancer named Stardust won the International Belly Dance Championship, and Carmen was back a ways in the rankings. She just couldn’t curb her sense of despair and jealousy. She felt like calling the whole shimmy-thing off. Maybe she should just become a bookkeeper for her shady uncle’s dump truck biz like he always wanted.
My fictional Carmen just danced into a very particular circle of hell: comparing herself to someone with similar aspirations who scored a coveted victory.

‘Where Then Is Paradise?’ — Reflections on Asteroids, Putin, Scarcity, and Love
You may have heard the news that scientists uncovered new understandings about the asteroid that hit planet Earth 66 million years ago, destroying three-quarters of all plant and animal species, including dinosaurs.
Two researchers from the University of Michigan initially reported the findings in NGU Advances. And a later report in The Washington Postdescribed the asteroid this way: “The researchers drew on previous research and assumed the meteor had a diameter of 8.7 miles and a density of about 165 pounds per cubic foot — roughly the weight of an average adult male crammed within a volume the size of a milk crate.”
It happened again – a trigger that jolts me into a memory when I least expect it. Last weekend, I watched an old Paul Newman movie, HARPER, with my friend Doris. Newman leads a cast that is pretty iconic: Shelley Winters, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner – with a screenplayby William Goldman.…
Read MoreThere’s a bird that sings outside my window almost every morning with the most haunting, flute-like melody. How can three notes, repeated over and over, be so captivating? Okay, I admit, Miles Davis’s tune “So What?” kind of made it clear that can be done in two notes – and it’s no wonder that Erykah…
Read MoreIt’s an otherworldly experience, what happens to creative writers when they fall in love with bits and pieces of storylines and characters crowding their heads. They are teased by their own minds into discovering what’s there, summoning up old memories, old feelings and fantasies of bravery, evil machinations, breathtaking adventures – you get the picture.…
Read MoreIf Alice of Wonderland ever grew up in the present day, she’d look like my friend Terri. I saw her for the first time in ages the weekend before last—she of the purple locks, John Fluevog fantasy-like footwear and a fairy tale dress that coordinated impeccably. At first blush, there’s no way to tell we’d…
Read MoreIf you’re looking for bookish relief from the problems that seem to surround us all these days, Dr. Stilson has a personal prescription: an un-put-down-able mystery novel, THE LAST PERDOUX, written by Larry Maness. Those of you who know my writing tendencies, and my novel THE JUICE in particular, may assume that this novel falls…
Read MoreI was standing before a Gustav Klimt painting when I felt him. A man I’d just met was right behind me. His hand had reached out, a half inch from my dark hair, searching for a connection and a true sense of me. Pretending not to notice, I gazed at the pale-skinned woman in the…
Read MoreWhen Wynton Marsalis was 17, he knew he had to leave home. His relationship with his mother was contentious. She didn’t want him to become a professional musician, and other people were urging him to find another path as well. Wynton asked his father, the great pianist Ellis Marsalis, for his opinion. “Do you love…
Read MoreOn lazy summer days long ago, my mother, sister and I would tackle the attic, figuring out which of our possessions relegated to that deep memory space should be discarded or better organized. There were odd sticks of furniture, stacks of splashy picture magazines, my mother’s childhood ringlets in an old cigar box, and my…
Read More“A great main character is a character who’s fully committed to a terrible plan.” Marti Noxon, Writer, Showrunner Recently I listened to a podcast called THE SCREENWRITING LIFE that featured an interview with Marti Noxon. Her screenwriting credits include SHARP OBJECTS, FRIGHT NIGHT and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. When she talked about great main characters…
Read MoreIt was dumbfounding. There I was, trying to plug a power cord into my MacBookPro. And for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what slot to use. That happened a few days ago. Bear in mind, my laptop is like an extension of my body. There is an invisible umbilical cord between the machine…
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