A humble life, dedicated to great purpose?
Last night I watched Stephen Colbert skewer fame, God bless him. Here’s the clip: The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c The Word – Cognoscor Ergo Sum www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy Everyone loves me, says Colbert. I am known, therefore I am. My life has meaning because everything I…
Read MoreThe 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…
Read MoreWhere 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…
Read More10 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…
Read MoreLiterature's multiple universes
Yesterday I had to make a plot decision in the novel I’m working on. This is something that happens frequently…all the time, in fact. Should a character wander off into the woods? Or should she climb the mountain? Should she open the door? Should he knock again? Kick it down? Should he walk away? Credibility…
Read MoreWhere the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom
The sad fact is that I read more mediocre, or even bad books, than I do good books; so when I read a terrific book I can’t help but want to pass along a recommendation. So here it is: get out there and order a copy of Amy Bloom’s new collection of short stories, Where…
Read MoreTraining for intuition
In the last week I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations. I was at a book launch for a poetry collection last week. I won’t name the poet, since I fear my words might offend him, and I am uncomfortable offending folks. The organizer had arranged a panel discussion between poets and scientists, to discuss…
Read MoreWriting as a butterfly net…
It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes…
Read MoreThe Truth Has A Price
A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE GLOBE & MAIL: In the New York Times recently, there was a review of a new memoir which is probably going to cause some controversy — Julie Myerson’s Lost Child: A Mother’s Story. In case you missed the firestorm in England when this…
Read MoreStaying on that wagon…
I was chopping carrots the other evening and flipped the television to CNN’s Headline News channel. On a program called, Issues, Danny Bonaduce, somewhat infamous celebrity and one-time self-identified alcoholic, talked about why he chooses to drink again. It disturbed me, in part because as a person in recovery myself, I know how dangerous this…
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