"Remember that time we almost lost to Hugheyville?" "Yeah," Dan Dimmelmeier replied. "Us playing against a school so small that they barely had enough boys in the student body to field a team." "Went into the seventh inning trailing by a run," his best friend, Brandin Porcher, recalled. "Then we tied it on a single …
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The Big Mistake
Beuerlein was an upscale town of about three thousand, perched on the New Jersey Shore. Unlike many such towns, Beuerlein's residents mostly lived there year around, and most who didn't were writers, artists, and craftsmen, and craftswomen, of other ilks. Lots of intelligent, good-natured people lived there, and most didn't get too out of shape …
The End of the Tunnel
This is bound to be a unique kind of book review. First of all, the book I just finished, Shine, is the third in a series. Secondly, it's not fiction. Thirdly, I've known the author, Joey Holland, for most of my life, probably dating back to some swing set or playground slide or sandbox. …
Finding My Audacity
Nowadays I write novels in order to make a living, or, at least, that's the direction I'm headed. Free-lance sportswriting provides some regular income. Royalties come in bits, snatches, and clumps. They're slow when I need them and flood in when the crises are past. I'm making progress. When I got my first novel, The …
Isn’t Fun the Greatest Thing You Can Have?
My greatest ally is my guitar. Or, my guitars. I keep one leaning against the couch to my left while I type away here. I just got finished playing a few songs to get me ready to write this blog. I played a couple of mine, "Stuck in a Rut" and "Uh, Huh." Then I …
My Fiction and Welcome to It
Let’s see. What’s the most boring, clichéd way I can begin a blog? Oh, I got it. Good news and bad news. First, the bad. Sales of Crazy of Natural Causes have been sagging recently. Rather than ranging from 15,000 to 50,000 in the ever-changing rankings, the range has shifted to 50,000 to 200,000 over …
At Least See if It’s too Hot for You to Handle
Why should you read my novel, Crazy of Natural Causes? Maybe you follow me. Maybe you’ve read one or both of my other novels, The Audacity of Dope (2011) and The Intangibles (2013). Maybe you’ve read my non-fiction books. Maybe you’ve read my newspaper columns, blogs and stories over the past 35 years. Maybe you …
Continue reading At Least See if It’s too Hot for You to Handle
Nothing Left to Lose
On Saturday morning, I was riding around and around my front yard on a mower, listening to Charlie Robison’s “Desperate Times.” That’s where this dark tale started. Joe Scharmann had applied for dozens of jobs. Three had deigned to invite him for interviews. Those whose job it was to conduct the interviews knew better than …
The Smart Kid
This is sort of a “Man Bites Dog” story, or, perhaps, “Girl Bites God.” Macy McMahon awakened before the alarm went off, as per the usual. She turned it off, got up, rubbed her eyes, gathered her wits, and strode down the hall, where she knocked on the door and yelled, “Rise and shine!” …
The Charmed Life of Charles Dough
This is the story of a prominent family, Homecoming at Calliham University, and a series of events that bring the wealthy alums, their children, and a couple mischievous stoners into, uh, contention. 1. DIFFERENT GOALS Jonathan Elbert McCutcheon was a direct descendant of the founder of Calliham College, his great-great-great grandfather Estes Calliham, …
Nightrider's Lament 