There are cons...and then there's NECon

I’ve been going to writing conventions for a decade. I attended one local writers guild convention in the late 1990s (Joe R. Lansdale was a guest, which was a big draw). Then I resumed my long-fallow interest in writing and I wanted to start networking with other writers. My first big convention was the World [...]

Auto Draft

On July 8 of this year, I will be 65.

Before all the “entitlement programs” go under the knife, gun, or bus, I am retiring.

I am not retiring from teaching. As long as the best college in the world, Columbia College Chicago, wants me to “gladly teach” I will do so–and [...]

Lost in Translation

Bev Vincent discusses the work of a translator with Tullio Dobner, who has been translating novels into Italian for over four [...]

She Blinded Me With Science

Well, actually, it was a he, and it involved psychiatric craziness, but I couldn’t get a working title out of that. Last month, Dave commented on not knowing about my so-called hippie days. Well, I was even wilder than that.

I smoke, did any of you know that? Marlboro Lights, the cigarette of the enlightened. Not [...]

THE BIG CHILL, POP. 54

About a week back, an old friend contacted by via Facebook, and long ago we had a shared history through the looking glass, if the looking glass constituted purgatory. Last I knew, she had been in Louisiana, but she and her husband had moved up here to Oak Park a few months back. We set [...]