The Mundane & The Sublime

Now and then I get emails from writers who are also recovering alcoholics, asking me whether I found it difficult to write once I got sober. I tell them I did, but then writing’s always difficult.  If it was easy, everyone would be doing it (and although some days it feels like everyone IS writing…

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Where God Has Me

It’s been a difficult week.  The Best Beloved and I just got back Montreal where we’d gone for my father-in-law’s funeral.  Morris passed away on January 12th (which is, oddly, also the day on which my adoptive father passed away, back in 1993). My father-in-law, Morris, was a great guy. He owned a department store…

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10 Questions never to ask a writer

I wonder how many of you have asked a writer of your acquaintance what you thought was a perfectly harmless question, one intended to show your interest in that person and what they do, only to be rewarded by a mumbled response, possibly a trembling chin, or, horrors, a glower.  You walk away thinking, What’s…

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