An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick… —William Butler Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium” Last week, setting out for the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers (NAIBA) show, I wrote boldly how my friend Chris Kerr and I might be dangerous as hurricane Joaquin. I was being ironic, of course, since […]
American politics has always had its share of bloviates, cynics, and demagogues, but recent years have provoked rhetorical excess not heard since Secession or the Red Scare. The vapid arguments of some and the smug ignorance of others are especially troubling now. Too often positions are mortared with hate and intolerance. I remember Massive Resistance and the […]
Yesterday I was speaking by phone with my publisher, Suzanne La Rosa of NewSouth Books, about the book trailer storyboard I’d sent her. Since my novel Forsaken is set in 1912, photographs are available of real people and places that appear in my fictional account of the trial and execution of the African American girl, […]