Archive for September 2019
Compliments?
I hear from readers and listeners and audience members every day. Most are kind and thoughtful, even when they are also challenging or ornery or disagreeable. Some of the things written to me bring me to tears. They are messages that I will save for the rest of my life. Sometimes trolls visit me, too.…
Read MoreDeep Impact is a stupid movie
I know it was released in 1998, but boy is Deep Impact a stupid film. It you don’t remember, Deep Impact and Armageddon both came out in 1998 – two months apart – and featured planet-killing asteroids threatening the Earth. Armageddon earned more than $200 million while Deep Impact brought in about $140 million. That’s…
Read MoreDefinition of guilt
I saw a definition of guilt online that I really did not like (and I wish I had saved it), so I wrote my own: Guilt is the space between self-blame – justifiable or otherwise – and forgiveness of self. It is – at its very worst – the chasm between self-hatred and self-love.
Read MoreWashington Post!
Thrilled to see that my next novel, “Twenty-one Truths About Love,” was listed in the Washington Post’s list of “The 18 books to read this fall!” A book comprised entirely of lists appearing on this prestigious list of books made my day.
Read MoreHemingway’s Robert Jordan and his last words
I’m not going to die, of course, but in a hypothetical world where death would come for even me, I think that some of the last words of Hemingway’s Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls would be the perfect epitaph: “The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I…
Read MoreJames Corden was brilliant for a reason everyone failed to see
James Corden’s segment taking on Bill Maher and the fat shaming comments he made on his HBO show Real Time have garnered enormous attention in recent days, and justifiably so. Corden’s criticism is brilliant. He’s hilarious, honest, vulnerable, compelling, and utterly convincing. As a bit of rhetoric, it has almost everything. But the best part…
Read MoreStoryworthy book launch (Part 2) [rebroadcast]
Matthew And Elysha step away for the mics for a week to offer you a rebroadcast of episodes 6 and 7 of the podcast, which feature the 2018 book launch event of Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling. STORYTELLING SHOWS 2019-2020 November 2: Great Hartford Story Slam, Hartford Flavor…
Read MoreStoryworthy book launch (Part 1) [rebroadcast]
Matthew And Elysha step away for the mics for a week to offer you a rebroadcast of episodes 6 and 7 of the podcast, which feature the 2018 book launch event of Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling. STORYTELLING SHOWS 2019-2020 November 2: Great Hartford Story Slam, Hartford Flavor…
Read MoreBacon!
After 21 years of teaching, I have finally encountered the greatest mid-morning snack that a student has ever brought to school: A bag of bacon. That’s it. Just a big old bag of bacon. Impressive. Right?
Read MoreTrump has achieved a new low.
I realize that pointing out the stupidity or amorality or narcissism of Donald Trump is like reminding people that the sun rises and sets every day, but occasionally he says or does something that rises to the level of incomprehensibility. Yesterday, Trump tweeted this: Did you see what he did? Trump quoted himself complimenting himself,…
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