Please? I’m in mourning. One of the best comedic actors of our time passed away yesterday, and I wasn’t ready to say “goodbye.” Every movie of Gene Wilder’s was delightful, and I mean that in the true definition of the word. He gave great pleasure to millions of people over several generations. He was a phenomenal actor, who starred in so many Mel Brooks’ comedies it was if they were related. Mr. Melvin James Kaminsky and Mr. Jerome Silberman; two Jewish kids ridiculing socie

I can’t let today pass by without paying homage to birthday girl Dorothy Parker who, much to her chagrin, was born in New Jersey on August 23rd, 1893, while her parents were summering on the Jersey Shore. Being the quintessential New Yorker that she was, she'd often voice her irritation about her mother’s inability to wait until they got back to Manhattan before giving birth. Although Dorothy, known as Dottie to her friends, lived a fairly privileged childhood, everything cha

I found myself stuck last weekend. Not in a traffic jam or in the mud, not even “in the middle with you," which is something we can all probably say this election cycle, regardless of party affiliation! I was stuck for words – the bane of every writer’s existence. Right now I'm writing a short story about a depressing subject; the thirty-nine minutes in 2015 before a Germanwings pilot purposely crashed a commuter jet into a mountain in the Alps, killing everyone on board. The

Yes, we writers want to make money doing what we love. For goodness sakes, writing is the lifeblood that keeps us going, right? Oh, to be the person who can get paid too! With this goal in mind, and with an abundance of enthusiasm and desire to learn everything there is about marketing my author-self through my website and blog, I waded into the "Blogging Industry" pool. What I quickly discovered is that it’s cray-cray deep, and there are an awful lot of lifeguards wanting t

…it was tense. Let’s face it; no one likes a grammar Nazi. Just Googling the phrase provides hundreds of memes decrying those of us who simply HAVE to correct a grammatical faux pas. Personally, I think regular folks simply don’t appreciate the innate compulsions of us grammar nerds. As a breed, we love the English language and all its crazy nuances. And, just like the scientist whose life’s work is putting a man on Mars, avid readers, (and writers), are drawn to the written