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{ Author Archives }

Software technical writer at the moment (and for the last 20 years), also a part-time graduate student at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science (SILS), going for a master’s in Information Science.

Lewis Shiner and the Fiction Liberation Front

Friend and colleague Lewis Shiner is a writer and novelist who has been releasing his fiction on the web for the last few years. Here’s an appreciation of Lew and his site that I wrote for the SILS Galley, way back in Fall 2007: Raleigh resident Lewis Shiner made his name in the ’80s as [...]

Summarizing the past year

Sorry to disappoint my skeptically inquiring readers, but I love reading my weekly Freewill Astrology post. Rob Brezsny’s Libra posts for the last three weeks have swirled around the idea of a cycle ending, taking stock, and looking ahead. Here’s how his Aug 12, 2010, reading put it: If you and I were sitting face [...]

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David Markson

I can’t remember how I ran across Markson’s novel This Is Not A Novel, but I found it so fascinating an experiment that I scooped up and read his other novels that followed the same disconnected yet mosaic-like form. Colin Marshall has written an appreciation of Markson, who recently died, that takes in all of [...]

Assorted links

“The truth is dancers and musicians live in two different worlds.” For academic writers, the Rule of 200. Writing 200 words/day is rather like writing for 15 minutes/day — it sets an objective, emotionally neutral goal. Getting that first draft squeezed out is most important; quality can be layered in later. Also, this raises the [...]

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From dr to mr

Over the July 4 weekend, I faced the fact that I was not enjoying the PhD experience. I discovered the limits of my capacity for the amount and velocity of work that poured into my life. I survived and that was as much of an accomplishment as I can claim. Based on what others had [...]

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