Struggling through 'Madame Bovary'
Why do I adore the amazing lush, vivid prose of this book, yet I’m inching along, struggling every evening to make myself pick it up, and...
Poynter Q&A on Las Vegas & Columbine
The Poynter Institute is the leading journalistic think tank. After the Las Vegas shooting, a Poynter professor asked me to do an...
Diving into Jennifer Egan's: "Manhattan Beach"
Writing a bestseller doesn’t get you into clubs or fancy restaurants, but the one perk can be books. 😃👍🏾👍🏾
My favorite living author,
Lucia Berlin featured on NPR's Selected Shorts
Lucia is still my hero. Amazing writer, amazing friend. You can read about what I learned from her--about writing and about life--in my Vani
Itching to write? Here's THE guidebook
I just pulled out my version of Janet Burroway's, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. Decades into my career, eight years after...
Lolita! 3rd time's the charm
"I then had the fantastic pleasure of creeping through that pitch-dark tunnel, where I lingered a little to listen to the singing in my
A week back in Colorado—Man, I needed that
It was great to see old friends, do some business, see some Columbine survivors and write! It's really good for my writing. Got my momen
At 'War Machine' premiere, based on Michael Hastings' 'The Operators'
It's based on Michael's bombshell book The Operators, itself based on his Rolling Stone story The Runaway General. (Which caused Pre
Teaching writing in Vermont this July
I can't wait. I'll be teaching at a week-long Writing Intensive program in Vermont this July. It's open to all, but offers free tuition...
Tolstoy gives his narrator omniscience in Anna Karenina, but...
Tolstoy gives his narrator omniscience in Anna Karenina, but he's selectively omniscient. Is that uncommon? He made me question where I...
