Not-yet-published pieces, stories, essays, rants, and random strangenesses

All right, it’s more of a slide show, but I’m proud of it anyway: Now go buy the book! And read more about the book here.

My job has me writing a lot each week: weekly newsletters, press releases, editorials, forwards and introductions to books—that sort of...

The first and foremost question a writer, public or intimate, must ask is, What must I say? To begin to know the answer to this question...

The past few days have been pretty hectic, job-wise. In between editing a couple of books, supervising the other designers, writing...

The novel is progressing nicely, thanks for asking. At least, it seems to be. May be too close to it to tell for sure. On top of that,...

If graduate students in the humanities are not being taught how to write, how can we expect those in the sciences to do any better? by...

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the...

Over coffee this morning (Raven’s Brew‘s delicious Resurrection Blend, which I highly recommend), Adam, newly graduated from massage...

Now that I’ve finished reading Sedaris’s thoroughly enjoyable When You Are Engulfed in Flames Writing is an athletic activity. It comes...

A frequent motif in my dreams is where I step into a life I am (or someone else is) currently living elsewhere, to taste what that life...

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and meta 1. Her face was a perfect...

In years past, I’ve circulated among my email friends and acquaintances—or rather, re-circulated—one of my favorite holiday essays, David...

By DOUGLAS MARTIN, The New York Times Published: September 8, 2007 Madeleine L’Engle, who in writing more than 60 books, including...

Shouldn’t “onomotopeia” actually be an onomotopeia? And shouldn’t “palindrome” be a palindrome? I think it should be “palinilap” instead....

Justin Erik Halldór Smith (no relation) is a writer. I want to be such a writer someday. He is also a professor of philosophy at...

“When I was thirty years old and living among the exiles by the Kebar River, on the fifth day of the fourth month, the heavens opened and...

Put my girth together with my love of wordsmithing and you might surmise that I am a fan of gastronomic literature. And you’d be right....

Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek, the Fox would say, ‘Child, to say the very...