The view from here

Watching the first two episodes of the new HBO series “Girls,” I chuckled, cringed and laughed out loud. That was when 24-year-old Hannah announced to her parents that she believed she was “the voice of her generation,” or at least “a voice,” and needed $1100 a month for the next two years to finish her [...]

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Papa and Pilar

The importance of Ernest Hemingway hasn’t faded in the 50 years since his death. His works still are read and analyzed, his eventful life dissected, his oversized personality discussed, the myth and the man reimagined.  Award-winning writer Paul Hendrickson (Sons of Mississippi) is quick to say the world doesn’t need another traditional Hemingway biography. So [...]

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Big in Duluth

I once shared a cab with several book conventioneers in Chicago after we all got tired of waiting for the shuttle bus that never came. We introduced ourselves, and the woman sitting next to me said, “I know you. You’re big in Duluth!” I looked at her in astonishment — never having been to Minnesota [...]

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Dogs to the Rescue

Central Florida sometimes seems like ground zero for missing persons. There are the Amber alerts that make the national news (Caylee Anthony, Haleigh Cummings) but also the local searches for elderly folk who have wandered away or the guy who went fishing and fell in a lake. And sadly, there are cold cases, like that of Jennifer [...]

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Barbie, Rheta (and me)

I don’t know Rheta Grimsley Johnson, but I’ve been reading her feature stories and columns for years in Southern newspapers. In fact, there was a time when I wanted to be Rheta Grimsley Johnson when I grew up. I was a feature writer at a small Southern daily, and I dearly loved finding “human interest” [...]

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