by admin | Jun 4, 2013 | Books
Literary daring comes in many forms. Some authors attempt to redraw the boundaries of traditional genre. Others try daring new themes that have previously been verboten in the society of their time, and though some gain lasting fame in this way, others find that, over...
by admin | Jun 2, 2013 | Disaster policy
It was just five years ago that Iowa was awash in flood water. Many people are familiar with the dire scenes from Cedar Rapids, where record floods forced the evacuation of 10 percent of the city’s residents on June 13, 2008, swamping the downtown and causing...
by admin | May 19, 2013 | Books
On Tuesday evening, May 14, I had the special pleasure of receiving an award from the Society of Midland Authors. Every year in May, the Society holds a banquet in Chicago at which it bestows its annual book awards in six categories—adult fiction and...
by admin | May 12, 2013 | Movies
Until this past year, I had served for several years in a row as a biography judge for the Society of Midland Authors’ annual book awards. As a result, a few years ago, I read Judith Testa’s Sal Maglie: Baseball’s Demon Barber (Northern Illinois University...
by admin | May 5, 2013 | Restaurants
Photos by Alyssum Pohl I had not planned to use this blog to talk about restaurants. Furthest thing from mymind, in fact. Then again, like most open-minded people, I can be persuaded to change my mind, based on the evidence. There is also the fact that cooking has...
