“Bella” on the Radio

Nicole Imthurn will read my short story “Bella and the Blessed Stone” live on her show Radiovert on WFMU radio tonight, July 24, 2019, from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. ET. To listen live, go to wfmu.org and click on the play button to the left of the page. For those who can’t tune in live, “Bella” will be […]

Goodbye, Champagne Charlie

Leon Redbone, one of my all-time favorite vocalists, died about a week ago at the age of 69. I first heard his voice when I was a teenager, and my friends and I thought he was the greatest thing since peanut butter and jelly. Redbone enjoyed a cult celebrity throughout the 70s and 80s, appearing […]

Why I Hate TV and Maybe You Should Too

The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu is a fascinating historical review of how the television and advertising industries grew up and eventually got in bed together. Wu makes the case that our attention spans have been bought and sold as commodities, often without our knowledge or understanding. He’s a fine storyteller who offers many provocative […]

Iris Murdoch on Love, Justice and Truth

Originally posted on Phil Ebersole's Blog:
I recently read Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature, a collection of philosophical writings by the late Iris Murdoch from 1951 to 1986. I bought the book because I enjoyed her novels, although I admit don’t remember the plots of any of them clearly, and because of praise…

Something Old and New for April 2019

I love philosophy. And I adore used books. So imagine my delight when I found The Gospel According to Zen (editors Robert Sohl and Audrey Carr) at a library sale for an unbeatable price: Freeee!  This is a fabulous skinny (133 pages) volume of writings about Zen, God, faith, and religion, with the intriguing subtitle […]

New Nick Story in March 2019 Galaxy’s Edge

I’m happy to announce that my short story “The Sin-Eaters” has landed in the March 2019 issue of Galaxy’s Edge. This is another original Italian folktale in my Il Villaggio di Ombre series. For a short time, the story is available online, along with great fiction by Orson Scott Card, Joe Haldeman, and others, and […]