Writing
-
To quote a birthday card I once bought my sister, “It’s that time of year again: Time to shave that llama.” While we might not have any llamas on hand, there’s still plenty to do. There’s putting up the Christmas tree, the lights, the ornaments. Then there’s finding the ornaments that Lucy took off and…
-
Why do you travel? After returning from a three-week vacation to Florida, I decided to take a page from my high school and college students’ playbooks and, instead of reflecting, asked Chat GPT. “Curiosity drives us to see what’s beyond the familiar. We want to understand other cultures, landscapes, foods, languages, and ways of life,”…
-
As the title of this post suggests, I have recently found myself drawn to cults. Not necessarily to the more gruesome aspects, but certainly the psychology that attracts people to these groups. Before going too far, I should probably define what I mean by a cult.
-
From the publisher: London, 1878. One April morning, a small boat bearing a young woman’s corpse floats down the murky waters of the Thames. When the victim is identified as Rose Albert, daughter of a prominent judge, the Scotland Yard director gives the case to Michael Corravan, one of the only Senior Inspectors remaining after
-
This June, I had the honor of traveling the state of Kansas to offer a mystery writing workshop. I spent a good deal of time back in September and October setting this up, but I think it was well worth it. We visited TEN libraries across the state of Kansas! While I failed to take
-
In 1985, Italian novelist Italo Calvino delivered a series of lectures on the future of the novel at Harvard University. Six Memos for the Next Millennium includes five essays on different topics—lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity—and an unwritten essay on consistency.
-
I received my first print publication of a short story last month—six months after my debut novel came out. Go figure! I was always told to focus on the short form before venturing into writing a novel. Read “The Opening of a New Spy Novel by an Author You Love” online at Calliope on the…
-
American short story master George Saunders takes on four Russian masters, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Gogol in his new book. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is part story collection, part master class, and part meditation on the writing life. I’ve always struggled with the short story form, which is ironic, at least
Steven J Kolbe 