The Makansi Effect

For this week’s edition of my shout-out entry to bloggers who are friends or people whose writing I respect, I bring you Jason Makansi’s site, www.jasonmakansi.com. I joined a freshly formed writing critique group earlier this summer, and Jason is the other male member of the group. His writing style is unique and he gives … Read more

The Dessert Tribulations

I. Love. Dessert. Dessert is the perfect end to a meal for me. In fact, I consider it part of the meal. No meal is complete without dessert. Yesterday, however, I ran out of dessert. It was 9:30 at night and I hadn’t had my post-meal snackie. The only sweet things I had in my … Read more

Three Sentences I Love

The other day I was reading a short story on Fifty-Two Stories, and a line jumped off the page and slapped me in the face. It was that good. I haven’t read a sentence like this in a long time: He’d dated since Nora’s death—two or three times, all setups that ended comfortably but without … Read more

Yes, I Read The Lost Symbol

Yes, I recently read the popular fiction novel follow-up to The Da Vinci Code. I’ll be honest–although the writing in TDVD was less than stellar, it showed me how to structure an intelligent thriller. For the most part, The Lost Symbol follows in the same footsteps. A recent blogger (sorry, I can’t remember who) noted … Read more

In Search of Monsters

I’ve mentioned JoshVision’s new blog and website in passing on this blog before, but I figured he deserved a proper shoutout like the other blogger friends I’ve talked about recently. Josh created his site mostly to start getting the word out about a collection of short stories he’s publishing called In Search of Monsters. Josh … Read more

A Different Take on the Economy

Last night, by sheer coincidence, I learned firsthand about a group of people who have been severely impacted by the international economic crisis that you hardly ever hear about: International students. A friend of mine hosted a dinner last night to celebrate Eid, the end of the Ramadan fast. He invited two African students who … Read more

Just a Quickie

Just a quick update tonight because I want to get back to The Lost Symbol, which I hope to review on the blog this week. Also, I have not slept well this week because of my new iPhone (review for that also coming this week). The connection? Because I use the iPhone as an alarm … Read more

Judicial Peach

Continuing my weekly series of shout-outs to friends and other bloggers I admire, I highly suggest that you check out the blog Judicial Peach. A friend of mine–a lawyer by profession and a cook for fun–writes this cooking blog. When I write a blog entry, I basically pull from a list of ideas/schemes/ponderances and write … Read more