Archive for February 2010
Dream come true times two
UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO will be available in bookstores on August 3 of this year, which feels like a million years from now. We are currently in the process of preparing for the book’s publicity and marketing. Galleys have been sent to a variety of media outlets and plans are in the works to publicize and promote…
Read MoreMy wife, the radical noncomformist
I often credit my wife for being the most tolerant woman alive, willing to put up with my alternative views on the world, my utter lack of conformity and my unwillingness to submit to cultural and social graces that I do not find logical or applicable. I am stunned with her unquestioning acceptance of someone…
Read MoreImponderables
I recently asked the following questions, to which I have yet to receive an answer: 1. Under the category of useless features, why do air conditioners have remote controls? How many changes to the temperature are made in a single day? 2. Why do the batteries on smoke detectors only die at night? 3. Why…
Read MoreAudio books: The good, the bad and the silly
When I was twenty years old, my best friend, Bengi, suggested that I begin listening to audio books during my one hour drive from Attleboro, MA to my job on Cape Cod. Feeling that I was a serious reader and future scholar, I considered audio books a tool of the illiterate masses and rejected them…
Read MoreNever again
I refuse to purchase a greeting card wrapped in cellophane ever again. Not because it’s the green thing to do (which it is) or to save cash (which it would). It is simply a rejection of pretension. A refusal to acknowledge the existence of such a ridiculous product. A challenge to senseless overspending and a heightened sense…
Read MoreMoose!
When I was seventeen years old, I was canoeing across a lake in northern Maine. The lake was so large that I couldn’t see the shore on three sides. The water was still, the air humid, the sun high in the sky. The only sounds were the distant twitters of birds and the gentle splashes…
Read MoreHudson recommends SOMETHING MISSING
It never gets old. Walking through Fort Lauderdale International Airport, we walk by a Hudson Booksellers. On the front table, in one of the best locations possible in terms of visibility, I spotted SOMETHING MISSING on their “Hudson Recommends” table. There have been many thrilling aspects to publishing my first novel. Spotting my book out…
Read MoreStuck in the minority
Late in the fall, I spent the afternoon in Northampton with my wife, my daughter, and my in-laws. We had a delightful lunch and spent the afternoon time touring the town, peaking into stores and generally ambling about. It was a good time, but after about an hour, I was done. Despite the fine company…
Read MoreUpcoming events
Next month I will be speaking at my hometown library as part of a program that is geared at offering an education in writing and publishing to anyone interested in attending. Local author Peter Cimini will talk about writing his first novel, THE SECRET OF OPI on March 22, and I will follow up his…
Read MoreThe butterflies were nice. The signage was better.
I spent the afternoon at Butterfly World in Coconut Beach, Florida, and while the butterflies, hummingbirds and flowers were delightful (my daughter adored the whole experience), it was the signage that I found most entertaining. It started with this, a welcome sign that might have overstated the attraction just a bit. A paradise? A world…
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