Bookpuddle

Hiatus. -- “a period when something is suspended or interrupted.” – I love that word. And I am about to take one. ...

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940) -- "What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story." Have a great Friday!

“...nobody ever became a writer just by wanting to be one. If you have anything to say, anything you feel nobody has ever said before, you h...

F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed that success (in writing) was not to be found in original themes. In his own view, there were “but two basic sto...

I was rather looking forward to writing an essay today about the history of the American Bestseller. However, my work was fairly dependent u...

“Mostly, we authors repeat ourselves – that’s the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives – experiences so gre...

All day long I’ve had one question rolling around in my head and it simply will not let me alone. Now I am sitting here at Starbucks, drinki...

This week, I would like to focus the Splash du Jours on the words of the great American writer-icon, F. Scott Fitzgerald. “My whole theory ...

A few days ago during on my lunch break I swung past the Library to return a book. While I was there, I logged on to one of the public compu...

"I think of novels in architectural terms. You have to enter at the gate, and this gate must be constructed in such a way that the read...

Here is another few wordsworth, from Cipriano’s Poem-Vault... The Rider A sparrow turns its head. Quiver...

I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or...

Here is a poem that I wrote so long ago that I can’t remember the date. At the time, I was just beginning a part-time job as a gardener. (No...

"Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire." -- François de la Roc...

Thus far, the response to my request for poetry submissions has been under whelming! So, here is another one from me. A few months ago I was...

The first part of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was published on this day in 1954. In this passage from his 1938 essay ...

I am inaugurating Poetry Week . Starting right now. We’ll see how it goes. Given the heat and humidity as of late, I am feeling a bit more p...

“I told her she wouldn’t make any money at children’s books, and she should get a day job.” -- Publisher Barry Cunningham on tel...

Fellow Bookpuddle-ites! The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one studen...

I am once again having a coffee at Chapters. A different one than last evening, but a Chapters nonetheless. And the evidence ...