Monthly Archives: September 2021

Two full days selling books at Printers Row left me with one powerful insight: children born in the last ten years have to be told what matches are. Matches are no longer part of these almost-people’s reality. Is this good or bad? Does it matter? I’ve been saying for years there will come a timeContinue reading “Kids no longer know what matches are”

Back when I wrote book reviews for the Chicago Tribune, every now and again my efforts were unappreciated and rejected. Without exception this happened with negative reviews. It always made me wonder which side of the journalistic/promotional fence my editor had more allegiance to. This was six or seven (nine?) years ago. The book-review landscapeContinue reading “Testing the Current”

Ten years ago, when my first book came out, it felt like there was a little momentum to my writing career. Perhaps it was smoke and mirrors——a side-effect of the efforts of the publicity department at University of Chicago Press——but for a short interval, I bought into the idea making books could be a legitimateContinue reading “Printers Row”