There’s something going on. Can you feel it? Between the persistent but frustrating noise about “Disclosure,” and the presence of unusual and seemingly-haunted houses and places in our immediate landscape, it is increasingly evident to an ever-more-sensitive public that the paranormal is all around us. We are not lacking for clues and strange creatures and episodes to help us glean this emerging truth, such as stories of religious miracles, the strange absence of sound in the

The answer, of course, is gently, and with due consideration and an appreciation for the wondrous nature of our lives and all of our thoughts, including and especially the whimsical. But extremes are best avoided, both “Nonsense! Stop imagining things!” as well as “It’s a simply wonderful fairy world where nobody ever gets sick or dies.” Both are an injustice to the spirit of childhood as well as our essential nature. Indeed we all might agree it’s important to help children

A stranger arrives in town. A sudden death galvanizes the story. Things are not as they seem. Small details become incredibly important. Nothing in the text seems as if it is marking time; instead, the paragraphs hurry along, and the story seems to have its own velocity and trajectory which slowly becomes clear to the reader. The reader is hooked from the start, characters appear whom we then come to care about, and then things happen to them and they do things that lead them

I remember when I was diagnosed with Birth Rage. Or wait. That wasn’t it. But as I recall the advent of my consciousness was so deeply triggering that I soon realized I was never going to get over this life, with all of its sharp edges and potential surprises at every crossing and turn. One might be taken unawares, one was told. This could lead to everything from catastrophic sudden unplanned disassembly to a lingering sense of ennui at twilight—and every shade between, from

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Fellow writers were always asking Kerouac how he did what he did. So Kerouac set down 30 essentials in something he called “Belief and Technique for Modern Prose." These tips may or may not make sense to you, but that's Kerouac, man: Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy Submissive to everything, open, listening Try never get drunk outside yr own house Be in love with yr life Something that you feel will find its own form Be crazy dumbsaint of

There are only two things worth writing about: Love & Death. There is only one plot worthy of attention: Things are Not as They Seem. There is only one nuance: Glimmers of Eternity in the Everyday. There are only two times to write: Now & Later. There is only one reader: Friendly, Educated, & Ready to Start Reading. There are only two writing solutions: Editing & Revision. There is only one word: The Right One. There is only one tempo for writing: Rapid & Yet Unhurrie

When you look for magic, you find it everywhere. You don’t need to define it, and yet you may try. We support trying. Take a moment with your pen and write down things you think are magic on the very last page of a notebook. Think of at least five, if not ten. Use descriptive language so any reader could understand what you think is magic, and why. Refer to it as you read this and then again when you get done reading. Bet it’s changed, and there’s your first magic, right here

We’re here for some very important reason, and while my rationale for saying so is diffuse to the point of ethereality, my conviction that this is the truth of the matter has done nothing but grow as the decades have streamed along, this after that, and then some other damn thing. You know how it is. Every darn one of us has a spark and a light inside, and some fantastic and wonderful reason that we are striding through the world, or curled up under a blanket somewhere, or cr

When I was a small child my family owned a bizarre box that served as a brightly-lit portal to dark and remote places where dwelt monsters as well as the most startling and stark-raving-mad episodes of fear which often blossomed into sheer horror, filled with zombies and demons, not to mention spooky high angelic voices and the unhinged muttering of absolute blithering madness. We called it a “television.” Our pretense was that we controlled it, right? I mean, in some ways ye

Writing is such a wonderful thing, and I applaud you doing any sort of writing—as long as you reflect upon it a bit afterwards. Revision and editing are fantastic tools that are always at your disposal, to not only make sure that you work is absolutely free of error, but also so you can get just the right nuance and subtle intentionality into your work in just the shades you would wish. How will you know a piece needs more work? You’ll probably think “No, that’s not quite it.

If you go out looking for trouble, you’re going to find it. You know? That’s just how it is, one of those eternal verities, and this sage advice comes to us from at least as far back as the Greeks (insert arcane Classical reference here), and is just as true today as it ever was. Attitude counts, and if yours is surly and fractious you cannot deem yourself ill-used by Fate or discommoded by the Gods if you purposefully provoke fractious surliness from those you encounter. N'e

I object to leaders who don’t read widely and often. You can tell by the shallowness of their speech just how barren their interior landscape is, and how tragically impoverished their mind is shown to be by their utterances and actions. Now I do understand that reading is not for everyone, and there are a few factors that go into this, such as social status, economics and lack of opportunity. Just 25% of Americans attend a four-year college, after all, and plenty of of them w

What finer education could there be than to spend your time in the company of poets? Is there another path of lived experience even half so much worth going through? After all, they are the “unacknowledged legislators of the world” (as Percy Bysshe Shelley would have it), and, as we are reminded, these darn poets are the music makers—why, they are in truth the actual dreamers of dreams, the men and women most likely to have thought through their subject (often at considerable

Any aggressive mashie or niblick talk is discouraged. If scores are changed, erased, written over or obscured, the Club Drone and the Rules Committee shall sequester themselves in the Port Wine Locker, while players return to the scene of their last lost ball and take three drops, playing the one that rolls farthest downhill. From that position play shall be complete by midnight, using flaming brands and torches if must needs be. Any over-topping of the ball or fl

The Count By Samuel A. Southworth One is for eternity, Two is for the trees, Three is for modernity And four is as you please. Five is for propinquity, Six is never square, Seven is ubiquity While eight just doesn’t care. Nine is always dressing, Ten your mother knows— Eleven is a blessing And twelve knows where it goes. February 17th, 2026 in NH

So, my needs for poetry are not complicated. First, I'd like there to be poetry, and I'm willing to do it myself. Then, I want the language to jump and sparkle if it can--tell me something I haven't heard before, phrase it in an unusual way, and use words like "scantling" and "half-holing" and "full-wide." Vivid details are always appreciated. Furthermore, I am ensorcelled by enjambment, which is taking sentences and making them run through poetic verses including from line t

For All We Know is a large book of poetry that will suit all types of readers, from traditionalists to the fringe, written using divine inspiration as well as tight deadlines by a deft wordsmith with a subversive talent for seeing the fantastic in the prosaic, and the tragedy hidden beneath laughter. Provoked into verse by an unusually broad range of reference materials, reflecting a lifetime of reading everything from Homer to Kerouac, and from ancient Babylon to outer space