From the ghost of Hemingway's editor, to a number of authors whose Pulitzers should be regarded as dubious: 1) Many sentences are just for exposition; say what you need to say and get on with the story. 2) It's OK if a walk-on character is used as a prop -- most are for that purpose; the waitress can just take the order and get off! 3) Dialogue tells more through what's not said than by what is.

“The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness.” —John Steinbeck

I am honored to have my story, "Boomtown Guide for the Perplexed," included in the May issue of Black Denim Lit.

My fiction has had a good run over the last 12-month period: three stories picked up in that time with a fourth slated for an upcoming issue of Black Denim Lit -- all thanks to the work of my wife and sometime literary agent (who has had a good run herself, publishing several poems). To help build excitement for the next one, I think I'll post the others in series in the coming weeks. Here is "At Least Once Under Par" Please support the journals, too.

“Sometimes you find that what is most personal is also what connects you most strongly with others.” —Grace Paley

“When I’m not writing, as my wife knows, I’m miserable.” —James Thurber

Personally, I've always liked "You peasant swain, you whoreson malthorse drudge," from Taming of the Shrew... The Paris Review “Should you deploy ‘whoreson cullionly barber-monger’ at your next bar brawl, you’ll emerge victorious, guaranteed.” The best insults from Shakespeare’s “King Lear”: http://tpr.ly/1iylQTk.