Movies About Writing
I enjoyed this article by Michael McGrath on The Millions about how movies so poorly depict writers. Mostly by ignoring the writing and focusing on the rest: The darker elements of creation are excellent fodder for thrillers and effective platforms for comedies. These films take the work itself less seriously (often a lack of literary merit is part of the joke) and instead focus on the pitfalls of the creative life. They ignore the words for the work and all that can inspire and disrupt it: psycho fans, ex-wives, portals to the Underworld. This is partly true, but honestly, I Read more…
Pay Whatever Your Want For The Marinara Murders! Really.
There’s been so much going on these past few months (a baby, a new job with Mary) that I haven’t written as much about writing as I would have liked. I’ve got three projects in the works, all of which I’m very excited about. Mystery, sci-fi, and another book for small nonprofits. But right now I want to talk about books that are already out. Maybe you haven’t gotten around to checking out The Marinara Murders or The Saints Go Dying. That’s totally ok! Because now you can do it totally risk free. It’s part of a very special “bundle” Read more…
XOXO
I’m in Portland this weekend for the first ever XOXO Festival, The festival describes itself as an “arts and technology festival celebrating disruptive creativity.” That was enough right there to get me interested. But then they continue: “We’re bringing independent artists who use the Internet to make a living doing what they love together with the technologists building the tools that make it possible.” I couldn’t resist. I bought a ticket within minutes of them selling out, and now we’re finally here. I’ll be at the festival for the next two days while Mary and Hannah explore Portland. Already we’ve had Read more…
Starting a new chapter
Fatherhood has a way of making things very clear, and these past couple of months with a new family have helped me realize it's time for me to start a new chapter. After a lot of thought and discernment, I've decided that it's time to move on from my job at City Club. Earlier this month, I gave notice to the board and let them know that I could stay on through August 31 to help the transition process. I've learned a lot in the past three years, met some great new people, and I'm happy to say that when Read more…
Put on your Fundraising Hat
I participate in a few online forums around the web where I share information about a variety of different interests and topics. But for the life of me, I couldn’t find any that are active that deal with fundraising (unless they are fundraising for specific groups, like frats/sororities, soccer teams, and schools). Why wasn’t there a place for leaders of small nonprofits to get together online and talk about fundraising? (Let alone leaders of nonprofits in general!) There are so many of us! We need a resource, a place to meet and talk about what worked, what didn’t, and exchange Read more…
This was really really fun
I sold some books too!
Book signing at the Carleton reunion
From what I can tell, I’m the only Carleton author with any fiction titles here today. I’ll have my first book signing ever in about 90 minutes! Really excited for it!
Big year.
Today's my birthday! It's been a very chill day. A little excursion to Pacific Grill (thanks to my sister for watching Hannah while we went!) and some hanging about the place. I spent some time on a new side project I'm working on (more on that later). I watched some good TV. I played with Hannah. All in all, a pretty nice day. And really, a pretty nice last year. What a year between May 22, 2011, and today. I ran for office, got elected (ahem, retained), published The Marinara Murders, wrote 62,000 words in a sci-fi novel (that is Read more…
I’ve been pirated! And I think I’m pretty ok with that.
In November, I participated on two panels with the Tacoma Arts Symposium. One of them was about social media/technology for artists. We had a lot of good questions from the audience, but a significant amount of them were about the audience member’s fear of piracy. People were afraid that if they started blogging their pictures or putting there ideas online, that they would be stolen. I came down pretty hard on the other side. I said something to the effect of piracy being a validation that you had actually produced something of value. That your art was actually good. That Read more…
Now available at Kings Books!
In the mystery section.
^