TWENTY BUCKS (flash fiction)

The first time my dad gave me a crisp twenty dollar bill, I thought it might has well have been a million. That's how great it felt.I was six and he told me that I could use the money to get whatever I wanted for my birthday."Can we go to Two Guys?" I asked.He nodded and 30 minutes later, I was wandering their nine toy isles -- only the ones for boys.Two Guys was like catnip for a six year-old. A precursor to stores like Best Buy and K-Mart, the...

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WHAT IF 'BRUCE' WROTE A DAMN GREAT FLASH?

I think it was around 1997... That's when I started thinking about 'voice' in relation to fiction and storytelling. I was barely developing mine at the the time but I do remember that I was reading Bernard Malamud and listening to a bunch of Bruce Springsteen. Something brewed in me. And mind you, it wasn't the rah-rah "Born in the USA" Bruce but the quieter tunes from his solo discs like "Nebraska" and "The Ghost of Tom Joad." I was on vacation...

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GET AN AWARD, GIVE AN AWARD...

Well, Mr. Jon Strother of Mad Utopia, aka the grandpappy of #fridayflash certainly has started an epidemic with his viral award Fabulous Flash Award...By now, it's been passed around more than a Thai hooker workin' overtime during Uncle Sam's occupation circa 1944. Um, you get the drift...Yesterday, the wonderful and talented Gracie Motley, who blogs from Crone’s Cauldron Publications was kind enough to bestow it upon me as was Alan W. Davidson,...

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SHOULD AGENTS BE PUBLISHERS?

Well this is certainly a grey area...The Wylie Agency, whose clients include such scribe estates of Saul Bellow and John Updike and living authors like Salman Rushdie and Philip Roth launched a publishing house last week called Odyssey Editions. So far, it boasts 20 e-books of acclaimed contemporary works, including Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint" and Updike's four "Rabbit" novels and available only through Amazon, an arrangement that enraged publishers...

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IT'S #SPOKENSUNDAY TIME...

For my #SpokenSunday piece this week, I went to the archives again for the audio reading of my poem "What She Said." It can be found HERE.Listen and enjoy... Also, feel free to join the #SpokenSunday fun on Twitter below...

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HER FIRST NIGHT (flash fiction)

Focusing only on the squeaks of the rusted bedsprings, she felt his sweaty stubble deep in her neck and she almost cried.Ivan – at least that’s what he said his name was - reeked a pungent mix of English Leather, Wild Turkey, Vitalis -- oh yeah, and wicked b.o. As he pounded away, Ivan kept making her say his name over and over as she moaned.When it was done, she hid under the sheets and watched him wobble down the flophouse stairs. Eventually, she...

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'DRAGON TATTOO' SETS E-MILESTONE

And who said people wouldn't read on their electronic thing-a-ma-jigs?Late Swedish author Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy has set an electronic milestone and has sold over 1 million copies in the e-book editions, publisher Alfred A. Knopf said yesterday.He's the second scribe to join the e-million club -- "Along Came A Spider" scribe and mystery thriller writer James Patterson also sold more than 1 million e-books.Amazon.com, the biggest player...

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NEW KAFKA TEXTS TO BE RELEASED, SAYS JUDGE

An Israeli judge overseeing a tussle over papers that once belonged to the author Franz Kafka has ruled that details of the documents should be made public.The literary world now awaits previously unpublished works emerging from boxes containing manuscripts, letters and journals written by the mysterious Czech author and his adviser and friend Max Brod.According to the newspaper Haaretz, the items include a handwritten short story by Kafka that has...

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THE LOVELY BLOG AWARD - PLUS 7 THINGS ABOUT ME

The very manly and prolific John Wiswell who blogs at The Bathroom Monologues have given us the (very unmanly-looking) One Lovely Blog Award. I gotta say, it looks like Holly Hobbie designed this thing with all its frilly doilies and teacups on it. But I digress...Anyway, here are the rules: I think I have to tell you guys seven things about myself that you may not have known and pass the award along to a few worthy bloggers.That said, though, I'm...

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L.A. REVIEW OF BOOKS TO LAUNCH THIS FALL

Jerry StahlWould Buk have gotten behind The Los Angeles Review of Books, an online periodical that will include multiplatform book reviews, author profiles, Skype interviews, readings as well as critical essays on classic authors? We think yes...The new journal launches in the fall under the direction of Tom Lutz, a professor and chair of the creative writing department at the University of California at Riverside.He's snagged an impressive stable...

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A CLASSIC TURNS 50

The Southern Gothic classic "To Kill a Mockingbird" silently turned the big 5-0 this past weekend and continues to be a beloved work of American fiction.To date, it has sold 40 million copies (Jumpin' Jeezus!) and still sells 750,000 a year, according to the book's publisher, HarperCollins.The Pulitzer-Prize winning novel by writer Harper Lee was published in 1960 and centers on racial injustice and the destruction of innocence. It's plot and characters...

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GODDESS OR GUTTERSNIPE? (flash fiction)

The goddamn hi-def TV in the dark bar was hurting my eyes.In fact, can I just say that do we really need hi-def? At what point is good enough, good enough? Anyway, some player was making some play for some team. I didn't care. It was the kind of day I was having.I scoffed at the TV and the barkeep Ralphie saw me. "What'sa matter? You have a bet down?""Nah," I answered shaking my head and pointing to the newscaster. "There's nothing more annoying...

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GINSBERG 'HOWL' TRAILER ARRIVES

A trailer silently arrived recently for "Howl," a biopic that chronicles the creation of the Allen Ginsberg poem Howl and the obscenity trial that eventually followed its publication. James Franco stars as the poet and Beat legend. The cool thing is there is a ton of "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm sprinkled in the trailer. God, how I wish he played Kerouac though. Here’s the official synopsis for "Howl":James Franco stars as the young Allen Ginsberg, who...

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A PROBLEM FOR E-POETS?

This is interesting and I suspect will be a problem for many of us with the advent of e-readers and tablet/pad-like browsers... Billy Collins, one of the country's most popular poets, had never seen his work in e-book form until he recently downloaded his latest collection on his Kindle.He was unpleasantly surprised."I found that even in a very small font that if the original line is beyond a certain length, they will take the extra word and have...

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OLD SCHOOL COOL: CLOONEY CHANNELS McQUEEN

George Clooney puts his best Cary Grant in the back seat for a film that the late Steve McQueen might have played in his earlier days."The American," is a drama/thriller directed by Anton Corbijn and an adaptation of the 1990 novel "A Very Private Gentleman" by Martin Booth. The premise is simple: Jack is a master assassin. When a job in Sweden ends more harshly than expected, he vows to his contact, Larry, that his next assignment will be his last....

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HARVEY PEKAR DEAD AT 70

If there was another counter-culture, salt-of-the-Earth scribe out there like Charles Bukowski, it was "American Splendor" comic book writer Harvey Pekar, who was found dead in his Cleveland home at the age of 70.You can read the mini obit that I wrote online for my newspaper, HE...

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HELLHOUND ON HIS TRAIL (flash fiction)

Click play for some mood music Greenwood, Mississippi. Around 1934.When I heard what that knucklehead musician was up to, there wasn't any way I was letting him go to those Crossroads alone. It was the night he supposedly sold his soul to play that thing he used as he hoboed across the country.He didn't see me following but it didn't matter, he was as drunk as the day was long. But I didn't think he was serious and moreover, I couldn't believe what...

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TENNESSEE WILLIAMS IS SMILING... GORGEOUSLY VINTAGE

Oodles of history here I just had to post. Check out the name of the little actor under Jessica Tandy in middle left of the poster -- a thesp who just so happened to go on and become a legend...If you feel compelled, watch this enlightening documentary on Tennessee Williams via YouTube entitled "Wounded Genius." It streams over five parts. I saw it the other day and learned much about the Pulitzer Prize-winner that I didn't know. Pretty good...PHOTO:...

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BORDERS STEPS UP E-WARS WITH THE SUPER CHEAP LIBRE PRO

With the dropping prices of the Amazon Kindle and the Nook at Barnes & Noble, the e-reader wars are getting more competitive.Borders is stepping up their e-reader game by rolling out the red carpet for their e-bookstore and slashing prices on all of their readers. The good news, though, is that if you want to get into the e-reader game but are a tad cash-strapped, the Libro Pro just may be what you want. It's a great, inexpensive alternative...

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GOOGLE COMMENTS ARE F-U-B-A-R

...Or f#@cked up beyond all recognition.Do you think that midieval scribes had to go through techie crap of their own? Like ... streaky ink? Or thin parchment? Anyway, this is just a short post to let everyone know that, as of yesterday or late Sunday, some (or pretty much all) comments left on entries on my blog are not showing up in the actual post.After diving into the Google Blogger help forum (which is a great resource, btw), I saw that I'm...

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HAPPY JULY 4!

TWO AMERICAN ICONS SING AMERICAN CLASSICS. Enjoy...

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