Swords, Specters, & Stuff
Welcome to My World
I started this blog in January 2012 for one simple reason: I love to write. I named it “Swords, Specters, & Stuff” because I especially love to write about writing, about books and movies in my favorite genres, about authors that mean a great deal to me. But there’s more to it than that, which is why I included “Stuff” in the title. It is “Stuff” that gives me carte blanche to write about anything, which is why you’ll see stories about special trips to Cooperstown, Sedona, and other places; about getting older; about baseball; about the otherworldly way in which I met my soul mate; about the loss of good friends, and so much more. Enjoy! And feel free to leave a comment.
Play Ball!
In the spring, those two words are like music to my ears. This is Opening Week for Major League Baseball, and since baseball is my religion, I could not be happier. Even better: my beloved San Diego Padres got the jump on every other team in America by hosting their...
Guilty Pleasures: Mimic
The 1997 sci-fi/horror flick, Mimic, is one of my favorites, though to date I had not written about it (that changes today). Maybe it had to do with my utter disappointment with its two direct-to-video sequels. Let me explain. On Thanksgiving 2012 I wrote a post...
Redux: Why I Do What I Do
Given my (approaching) dotage I’ve been taking on fewer writers in recent years, though I imagine I’ll never give it up entirely. The primary reason for that has to do with how much I love sharing in the success that many of my writers experience. This was more than...
Self-Publishing: Where’s The Watchman?
Quite a few years ago, when self-publishing, e-publishing, POD and such were in their embryonic stages, literary super-agent Richard Curtis (who at one time represented me) wrote an op-ed piece in Publishers Weekly titled, “Who’s Guarding the Gates?” The article...
Opening Lines: Part Quatre
I just can’t get enough of those great bad opening lines that have been submitted to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest over the decades. Here are some more gems from recent years. Hermann lay with Esmerelda, entwined with one another among love-tangled sheets and he...
Redux: When Art Creates Life
When my blogmeister and great friend, August McLaughlin, asked if I would participate in her “Beauty of a Woman” Blogfest 2014, I pushed the Staples button: EASY. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, inside and out, is the one I’m married to: my Jacqueline. And...
“We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes”
I love memorable lines from the silver screen, especially if they’re from movie favorites that I watch numerous times. A couple years ago I wrote a post titled, “She Wouldn’t Even Harm a Fly”—the great last line from the classic 1960 Hitchcock film, Psycho....
Myths And Legends: Robert The Doll
Few folks know that Chucky had a real-life role model called Robert the Doll. Chucky, of course, is the murdering Good Guy doll—possessed via voodoo by the spirit of serial killer Charles Lee Ray—who “stars” in the Child’s Play franchise, at last count six...
Dusty Is Gone
A STAR STOPS SHINING I’m sure everyone knows by now that Philip Seymour Hoffman passed away last weekend at the heartbreakingly young age of forty-six. Still, I had to acknowledge his passing, as he has long been one of my favorites. He gave life and emotion to every...
Wolf Spirits In The Old ’Hood
I grew up in The Bronx, New York City’s northernmost borough, before leaving it for good in 1967 after graduating college. For the first fourteen years I lived in the South Bronx, until urban decay began to set in, sending my family to a nicer part of town. Through...
Latest Release
