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It is with not inconsiderable risk that a fellow chooses to weigh in on the Tim Hunt faux pas, but it was the following article from The Guardian that caught my attention and emboldened me. It was not that I too attended a “single-sex school in the 1960’s” as Hunt’s wife, the immunolo

Before writing my first novel As It Is On Earth, I did not have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Blog, or a website that relied on me as the “Admin.”  I scoffed at the first, did not understand the meaning of the second, shrank in horror at the third, and thought

This weekend, I’m off to receive my PEN/Hemingway nod at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston. It’s a public ceremony, so come by and say hi if you’re in Boston. I say “nod” for a reason. That’s all Catherine Chung (Forgotten Country) and I – the

A number of folks have asked recently: Why Ruminations…? I assume they’re referring to the name of this blog and not why I would waste even one minute writing this stuff. If the question is to the latter, let’s just say I’m trying to wrestle with a few imponder

For spurned writers, the agents who passed on their novel are easy targets for post‑factum ridicule. The rejection letter looms large, and it takes an even larger fellow to just…well, just get over it. I am one such fellow. No,…really. A concern for “commercial viability&#

A number of years ago, I wrote a short story called The Life of Birds.** In the story, a young somewhat adrift fellow named Ben oversees a small nature sanctuary. While leading a group of bird watchers through the forest, he points out a brightly colored orange and black oriole in the

Something for election seasons…or whenever – a favorite bit from The Moviegoer: “Whenever I feel bad, I go to the library and read controversial periodicals. Though I do not know whether I am a liberal or a conservative, I am nevertheless enlivened by the hatred which one bears

Last week, I wrote about seeing with instruments. That got me wondering again about what science shares with religion. Well,…”Jackson Pollock on the Mount” – the graying paint-spattered priest in As It Is On Earth – wonders as well. Sermonizing on the rationale

Two of my favorite writers on their garden benches, a tree over each of their left shoulder, and their heads tilted slightly rightward…as if they share one of As It Is On Earth‘s character’s poignant tendency “to see the slant of things better that way.” In AIIOE, I

Firstly, a shout out: to Mark Mathew Braunstein whose photograph of Mamacoke Island graces the cover of As It Is On Earth, and to Andy Carpenter who found the photo, and then designed it into AIIOE’s lovely book jacket. Mamacoke Island plays a big role in the story. Its more than a pl