Category: Writing

I call them preacher stories–those tales that pass from church to church, book to book, blog to blog. Sometimes corny, sometimes profound, they can inspire, accuse, challenge, amuse, surprise or inform. I recently came across the same story three times, and it made me wonder.

Do I, as the editorial director for a traditional print publisher, encourage and support self-publishing–even self-ebook publishing? Yes. I do. Here’s why.

As fellow editor Gary Deddo likes to tell the story, his ninth-grade English teacher was the perfect stereotype. Glasses, tight face, hair in a bun, outdated dress that came up in a tight collar around her neck, leaning over her desk and in a crackly voice exhorting her students, “There’s no such thing as good …

My latest excursion in literary tourism took me just fourteen miles from our offices in Westmont when I recently visited the birthplace of Ernest Hemingway with some friends. The house in Oak Park, Illinois, has largely been restored to its original condition. Here young Ernest joined in prayers with his grandfather Abba, a Civil War …

In Phaedrus, Socrates muses on the merits of writing. Surprisingly to our minds, he is skeptical. Why? It is a recipe for forgetfulness. We won’t have to exercise our memories anymore. Knowledge of a subject, after all, is much more valuable than a written account of the same thing. The only virtue of writing was …

Nicholas Carr made a splash with his Atlantic cover story “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” which I discussed here. Now in The Shallows he brings a full-length book to bear on the question, and it’s a dandy. The subtitle, “What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,” is very descriptive. In this serial review, I’ll …

Those who know my wife, Phyllis, know that she is a larger-than-life personality. Those who know me, know that I am not. We are the poster children for Opposites Attract. I’ve often said that Phyllis can strike up a conversation with a fencepost, and get the post to do most of the talking!