25 ALBUMS: MY LIFE IN MUSIC
Monday, March 16th, 2009 Posted in Bystander, Fun Clips, Greatest Hits, Music | No Comments »On Facebook, it's popular for people to make lists of the 25 albums that "affected them profoundly." As a music lover, I figured such a list was for me, but found it an impossible and wholly unsatisfying task. Yet I ...
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bullying
Monday, January 19th, 2009 Posted in Bystander, Current Events, Greatest Hits | No Comments »When I was working on Bystander (Fall, 2009), a book that centers on bullying, I kept running across different quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr. He would often express the same idea in subtle variations. In essence, Dr. King issued ...
Snow Blow Love: Winter Reflections
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 Posted in Family, Greatest Hits | 6 Comments »Last winter, we finally caved and bought a snowblower. Up until that moment, I had only disdain for those mechanical menaces. They were for the weak, the pampered. No, I preferred the exercise of shoveling -- the peace after a storm, ...
What It Is: The Lynda Barry “Distraction”
Monday, January 5th, 2009 Posted in Greatest Hits, Interviews & Appreciations, the writing process | 4 Comments »I think it's time we talked about the supreme awesomeness of Lynda Barry . . . . . . and maybe a little bit about why I love her most recent book, What It Is. I'm not practiced at writing reviews, ...
My Word for 2009
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 Posted in Around the Web, Greatest Hits | 3 Comments »About a week back, I linked to One Little Word, a concept for the New Year when we are called upon to select a single word as more or less our theme/mantra for the coming year. As far as I ...
Books for Boys?!
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 Posted in Along Came Spider, Bystander, Greatest Hits, The Gender Gap in Reading | No Comments »School Library Journal recently ran a review for Along Came Spider. Written by Elizabeth Swistock, you can read it in full by clicking wildly right here and scrolling insanely downwards. I think Ms. Swistock gives an accurate, sympathetic review, while noting ...
Shea Memory, Childhood Illness, and Six Innings
Sunday, December 7th, 2008 Posted in Greatest Hits, New York Mets, Six Innings | 1 Comment »As these photos taken by Joe MacDonald show, the destruction of Shea Stadium continues into winter. Come spring, our attention will turn to the new home of the New York Mets, Citi Field, with its beautiful Jackie Robinson Rotunda, and ...
An Open Letter to President-Elect Obama
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 Posted in Around the Web, Family, Greatest Hits | 10 Comments »Dear President-Elect Obama: It is with some difficulty that I type this, as I am a dog and not really a Mac person. I’ll try to be brief. My name is Daisy. You probably receive thousands of letters each week from dignitaries, ...
Ten Best Christmas Movies
Saturday, November 29th, 2008 Posted in Greatest Hits, Jigsaw Jones | 1 Comment »As the author of the Jigsaw Jones series, I've been told by more than one editor that I am "so Jigsaw." And I suppose that's reasonably true. But I also identify with Jigsaw's father. He is, like me, a list-maker. ...
That First Sentence: Ramona Quimby, Age 8
Monday, November 17th, 2008 Posted in Greatest Hits, Readings, the writing process | 7 Comments »A while back, I had the genius idea of posting about Great Opening Sentences. It struck me as a neat platform from which discuss writing in general. You can find that entry here and, as a brief follow-up, here. A couple ...