Tom Swift Writer’s Notebook

The book has received its first legitimate press that I am aware of: a starred review. I certainly can’t complain.

OK, we’ll go to the shelter, again. We’ll make a pass through the pups section, again. Yes, we will go. Again. Then we’ll work out, have lunch, and resume our puppyless lives.
My resistance had been broken down by the generous person in my marriage — at least to the point where I was willing to [...]

After a dozen-minute drive I unload the car and read the sign that greets science-believing heathens like me at this 50,000-population-city’s “recycling center.” Bin No. 2, apparently, is for all forms of paper. Only the bins themselves are not numbered. The one that contains paper has signs all over it saying “newspapers only,” in [...]

I’m toe-to-toe with Russ Feingold. “She’s been a senator for seven years — that gives her all this supposed experience to be president? He has a spent a lot more time in elected office.”
“The Illinois state senate doesn’t count,” Feingold said.
“So what you’re saying is that if there was a presidential election five years from [...]

I appreciate authors who write history I should know with clarity and depth that makes me want to know. Nathan Philbrick turns the trick in “Mayflower” — a book that tells the important story of early European arrivals in this country and the complex, seamy nature of that story.
Philbrick dispels long-running fairytales about the [...]

Holy bananas! A great independent bookstore has generously offered to accept pre-orders for my forthcoming book — perhaps you have seen the thing mentioned a time or on this site — at 20 percent off the cover price. Shipping is available anywhere the U.S. postal service delivers. All you have to do is click [...]

He laughs. This surprises me because I didn’t know he was awake. His chin is often close to his neck; so tight in fact that I don’t know how he can see what’s in front of him. A thick blue cap covers his crown and a good bit of his dark face.
He comes to this [...]

What do you read?
Writers are always asked that question. Well, at least that’s what I hear they’re asked. The only regular query I get is “Can you move that cart? You’re blocking the aisle.”
I’ll pretend you asked and periodically try to mention writing that moves me. You are free to disregard my reading suggestions [...]

The bell rang a second time and I set down my music muffs to see what this was all about. No one rings here, out here where there are more pecan trees than people.
It’s a young man peddling papers.
There’s a program, he said. I’ll be able to go to college.
I’m not good with decisions, especially [...]

For reasons I won’t bore you with, I am temporarily away from the homestead. I’m in the Deep South, a landscape dominated by churches as large shopping malls and (coincidentally?) every fast-food chain you can think of and at least a few you cannot. The redeeming value of this temporary fix is that in the [...]

As I slid my fork through a slice of pumpkin pie I looked at the bottle of whipped cream — or whatever it really is; some chemical combo that tastes like whipped cream — before me. In addition to the ingredients (I put something called “carrageenan” in my body, which sounds healthful) and the [...]