Worst excuse ever
My friend, Tom, can’t play golf with me this afternoon because he is “making pickles and dill green beans.” The man already lives in colonial times, heating his eighteenth century…
Guest blogger: My agent, Taryn Fagerness, explains her life in the foreign rights world
Greetings from Matt’s literary agent! When I opened my own agency in 2009, I decided to specialize in the selling of foreign rights (along with selling domestic rights for authors…
Cruelty on display
Conversation between me and two cashiers, a dorky, teenage male and a slightly overweight, generally unattractive teenage female, at Border’s Books and Music. The dorky male was scanning my purchases…
A brave new Snoopy Sno-Cone Maker
My friends really are the best. I received information on the most current version of the Snoopy Sno-Cone Maker from a Facebook friend: The description reads: For nearly 30 years,…
Three best compliments ever
The first came on January 1, 1988. I was sixteen years old. I was standing on a bridge in California, strapped to a bass drum, ready to march in the…
Poverty breeds careful planning and worn-out rubber
In the midst of my recent obsession over an adult-sized Big Wheel, it occurred to me that when I was a kid, I desperately wanted the Snoopy Sno Cone Maker.…
Friendship rating guidelines
In preparing to revise my famous Friendship Application, I was explaining to Bengi, my DJ partner, best man in my wedding, and friend of more than twenty years, that one…
It’s coffee.
New statistic 97.3 percent of all jokes regarding coffee are not funny. Listening to a podcast the morning, the hosts began the show by warning listeners that “Brian just drank…
Handsome not always nice
Can we all agree to refrain from ever referring to any female as a handsome woman? I don’t understand this expression. What does it really mean? “You used to be…
This is one way to make me feel inadequate
When I start to think that writing is hard and writing novels is even harder, I will watch this video and remind myself about how lucky I am. Some people…
