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Recent Posts
- On Randall K. Wilson’s “A Place Called Yellowstone”: Award-Winning History of Yellowstone National Park
- On Candice Millard’s “River of Doubt” and “River of the Gods”: Bugs, Snakes, and Disease Aplenty
- More Alone than “Alone”: On Adam Shoalts’s “Vanished Beyond the Map: The Mystery of Lost Explorer Hubert Darrell” (2025)
- Rachel McAdams film “Send Help” (2026) Makes Comic Gold Out of “Survivor” and “Alone” Audition Videos
- “The Wiggle Room”: A Short Story
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Tag Archives: Fiction Writing
Hurricane Harvey Hits Home Town, Like I Predicted in "Goodnight, Texas"
So my misspent years in high school were dithered away in the Texas coastal town of Rockport, which appears to have been the epicenter of Hurricane Harvey’s landfall last night. Back in 2006 Unbridled Books published my novel Goodnight, Texas … Continue reading
Posted in books, books/film, Climate Change, The West
Tagged Climate Change, Fiction Writing, Goodnight, Texas, The Bird Saviors, The West
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In the Country of "No Country for Old Men" and On the Trail of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian": What I Did for My Summer Vacation
So late July found me (and my family) in (mythical) Cormac McCarthy country, at the Three River Petroglyph site near Three Rivers, New Mexico, which is a cool (and hot) place to be. We camped there for three days, watching … Continue reading
Guest Blog Post on the Superstition Review Website
So the nice editors over at the Superstition Review have not only published several of my stories and a recent essay—on stuffed animals, of all things—but they have also asked that I write a guest blog post for them, which … Continue reading
Posted in books, books/film, Cormac McCarthy, writing
Tagged Book Reviewing, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina
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On the Film Version of Dave Eggers's "The Circle" and a Nod to Cormac McCarthy's Essay "The Kekule Problem: Where Did Language Come From?": From the Ridiculous to the Sublime
So I’m not in the habit of beating dead horses (though I did once write a scene in which a couple got romantic while leaning up against one, but that’s a different story), and I don’t bother to review or … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Bad TV, Bears, books/film, Cormac McCarthy
Tagged Book Reviewing, Dave Egger's The Circle, Fiction Writing, Millennials, The Circle film version, The West
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"The Sailor's Gift": Short Essay in the Dallas Morning News
So as I noted in my previous post (The Goodwill Genius: On Discovering Vladimir Nabokov’s Bend Sinister) I actually wrote the “wrong” essay for my editor at the Dallas Morning News, remembering it only to be about a book that … Continue reading
The Goodwill Genius: On Discovering Vladimir Nabokov's "Bend Sinister"
So back in December my editor at the Dallas Morning News asked me (and other contributing writers) to pen a brief essay about a book I’d been given as a gift some time in my life, and I actually wrote … Continue reading
"The Altered States of Stuffed Animals" in The Superstition Review
So I have an essay titled “The Altered States of Stuffed Animals” published in the latest issue of The Superstition Review, which can be located here. I have a fondness for TSR, as they have published some of my work … Continue reading
On Ian McGuire's "The North Water": a Revisionist "Moby Dick," With Echoes of "Blood Meridian" and "The Revenant"
So last week I had the gripping-if-ghastly reading experience of zooming through Ian McGuire’s new novel, The North Water. I’ll try to be circumspect in my comments here so as not to spoil the reading “fun” for others, as I … Continue reading
Review of Dominic Smith's "The Last Painting of Sara de Vos" in the Dallas Morning News
So interested readers can find my review of Dominic Smith’s novel The Last Painting of Sara de Vos in today’s Dallas Morning News here. I liked the book: quiet and understated. I don’t really know anything about Smith, though I … Continue reading
Monsters Within & Without the Bunker: On "10 Cloverfield Lane," Which High-Fives "The Revenant," With a Nod to the Original "Cloverfield"
So I was amused by the original Cloverfield (2008), with its cool poster of the Statue of Liberty and tagline: Some Thing Has Found Us. It’s no great film or anything—kind of a Heineken ad spliced with (the film version … Continue reading
Posted in Bears, books/film, Film, Horror Films, The West
Tagged 10 Cloverfield Lane, Fiction Writing, Film, Horror Movies, Stephen Graham Jones, The Revenant
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