December 28, 2018
On Rereading Books
Each year, as I look over my list of all the books I’ve read (and listened to) in the past year, I always take note of the books I chose […]
December 12, 2018
In Defense of Long Sentences
When it comes to prose style in contemporary literature, no two works have had a greater influence than George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” and Strunk and […]
October 26, 2018
On Character Names
Picking a character name is often as hard as writing the first line of a new novel or story—the kind of specific and essential task that often halts any momentum […]
September 28, 2013
Matter and Antimatter
Twenty-eight years ago, at the University of Wisconsin, I took an introductory course in philosophy. Asked to write about epistemology (as espoused by Descartes, I think, or maybe Bishop Berkeley), […]