I Was Interviewed

AdviceToWriters interviewed me about being a writer. How nice! Here’s a sample of the interview: What’s your advice to new writers? Learn to love discipline. Set up a schedule for yourself—a word count to hit, an amount of time at…

My 2013 Garden

It’s unsettling that California has decided to skip winter. The governor declared a major drought emergency. Accuweather says no rain until February 23. (And apparently there will be “abundant sunshine” on February 14th.) It’s scary, but the sunshine is also…

Every Day Failing For Five Years

Here’s part of an essay by Junot Diaz about the difficulty he had writing The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008. It’s pretty astounding what he went through. This essay originally appeared in…

Edit Your Novel With Math In McSweeneys

I have a short humor piece in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. It’s called Edit Your Novel With Math. A sample: With scissors, cut out all unique words used in the novel. Put these words in a bowl of water for three…

Article: What Was On The First Christmas Menu?

My newest article in Mental Floss is 39 Dishes from the First Christmas Menu, Published in 1660. If the thought of planning Christmas dinner makes you nervous, be glad you weren’t born in the Renaissance. The earliest known published Christmas…

New Article: Why Are Santa Claus’s Bones Leaking?

My newest article on Mental Floss is about Santa Claus. It turns out that a church in Bari, Italy has St. Nicholas’s remains and they claim that his bones are releasing a sweet smelling liquid that they call manna. Every…

Article: 5 Obscure Looney Tunes Cartoons

Check out my newest for Mental Floss: 5 Obscure Looney Tunes Cartoons. That’s right, weird, cool, visually interesting cartoons for your Thanksgiving enjoyment. Watch them now before Warner Brothers takes them down!

Jack London’s Writing Advice

Jack London may have been frequently drunk but he was also like the Stephen King of his day–the most famous, highest-paid writer around. He wrote 1,000 words a day, 6 days a week. This discipined practice allowed him to be…

Robert Louis Stevenson Writing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Wow, is all I can say to this passage about Robert Louis Stevenson Writing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Robert Louis Stevenson [churned] out Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in six days while under the pall of tuberculosis and the…