Art with Fountain Pens
A friend of mine is a passionate collector of fountain pens. In fact, I wrote a poem about it (still hoping to publish it). He recently showed me some of […]
New Annotated Manhattan Transfer
I’ve started digging into Donald Pizer’s new annotated version of Manhattan Transfer and it’s awesome. Here is a very helpful note on page 3 that explains the context of the title: “During this […]
The Campers at Kitty Hawk
This is a spectacularly innovative adaptation of John Dos Passos’s work. Enjoy this video of composer Michael Dellaira’s choral song based on Dos Passos’s biography of the Wright brothers in the […]
Lawton Chiles Story on French TV
Enjoy this new French TV episode on Lawton Chiles’s famous 1,000-mile walk across Florida, now at its 50th anniversary. In February, a French reporter contacted me about covering Chiles for […]
Indigenous Peoples Day
It’s hard to imagine the American Plains full of bison herds. Bison by the millions. As the U.S. expanded westward, bison were targeted by European settlers for extermination. The near-extinction […]
In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night (1967) is one of my favorite films in general, my favorite film about race, and my favorite film about the South. As far as […]
The Pride of Spancil Hill
The pandemic started around St. Patrick’s Day and I bought some Irish folk songs for celebrating, not thinking much of it. Little did I know I would fall deep in […]
New Poems
Despite the pandemic, I’ve been busy at work. Lots of writing. Recently, I published two poems–“Pandemic on St. Patrick’s Day” and “Madrid Tertulia”–at the Spanish online magazine Zenda. Both poems […]
“Take This Sabbath Day”
Something therapeutic about watching the first season of The West Wing during our national nightmare under Trump. “Take This Sabbath Day” is a beautiful story. It’s a story about the […]
This Week on Climate.gov
Please consider signing up for my weekly newsletter at NOAA, “This Week on Climate.gov.” I promote 4-5 stories each week, including feature essays from world-class science journalists, new and compelling […]