I finished a new short story, On a Bench in Union Square Park. It's a meditation on grief, loss, and regret. This is my second short story of 2026, and more are on the way! I've missed writing short pieces. I hope to have six solid shorts written by the end of the year. Here's a snippet: "I don’t remember whose idea it was to meet at the bench — mine, my mother’s, or my therapist Tonya’s. I suppose it does not matter whose idea it was, not really. It had been a good one, sure

A 100-Word Story They used to call him “Chunky”. “Chunk” for short. By the time Freddie Filch, aka Chunk, was ten, he was pushing 200lbs. Kids can be so cruel. Chunk’s Ma said it was a “gland problem”, even though she herself was what neighbors referred to as a “Heffer”. Adults can be cruel. High school came. Chunk grew wider and “Chunk” became “Super Chunk”. Young adults can be cruel. High school went. College came. Chunk went 1,200 miles away from home. Nothing changed. He

A 100-Word Story  I love and hate eBay. Everything I want is there. Everything. I made a list. Over 100 items, toys mostly. Childhood toys. The same ones my mother got rid of while I was at summer camp. She purged them because I was “too old” for them. That wasn’t her decision to make. Star Trek, Superfriends, and KISS Megos. The Dracula! board game. ColecoVision. Atari. Everything. All there for the buying. I buy them all. One by one. A flurry of packages arriving like Chris

With just a few weeks left in 2019, I'd like to give a shout-out to a few of my absolute favorite reads of the year (so far) and just...

It's really hard to believe that my debut novel, Far From Grace, is now only eleven months away from publication! People have asked me if...

"Have You Eaten Grandma?" by Gyles Brandreth HYEG is a grammar and usage book that's an awful lot of fun to read. It's not very often...

"Dreyer's English" by Benjamin Dreyer Benjamin Dreyer is the executive managing editor and copy chief at Random House, which makes his...

Art isn't easy, but is it one part inspiration and ninety-nine parts perspiration, or the other way around? How would you define...

2019 is now less than four hours away — if you're on the East Coast in the US, like me! Let's put the setbacks and failures of 2018...

Or, How I Wrote My First Novel Without Losing My Sanity!* (most of my sanity) This year, over the course of four arduous months, I wrote...

"Story Trumps Structure" by Steven James If November's writing book of the month was a gift for the plotters out there, then December's...

Aside from "writer's block," the most cited cause for not writing among writers is... drum roll, please... "I just don't have time to...

TRICK November 1. 2:38am. Vic spotted the older man first, zeroing in on the limping fellow as their van drove down the deserted Main...

Happy Halloween, and happy birthday, Kane! To celebrate Kane's first birthday, you can now read The Little Things: a tiny terror for free...

Kane was an odd-looking fellow — as tall as Geoff was short, gaunt, with equally long, thin extremities. His skin was almost as creamy...

I completed the second draft of my debut novel "The Belles of St. Mary's" over the weekend. What a rush! Three-hundred and forty-seven...