I was asked by an agent, whose curiosity was piqued, to send in my full manuscript and give her six to eight weeks to read it. Nine weeks later, I checked in. I was told to wait a couple more weeks. And so, about five days ago, which wrapped up week twelve, I followed up again. This time: nothing.

Getting a rejection is one thing. It hits you like a ( Read more... )

So I'm walking down the street, and I see this guy. He's young and tan and good looking, with blond hair peeking out of his backwards baseball cap, wearing Abercrombie shorts and expensive aviator sunglasses that are dangling from his unbuttoned, pastel-colored polo. And I think, "This guy is a dude-bro douchebag. And I think he's a rapist." I've ( Read more... )

I don't want to get shot dead, at random, in a parking lot, or at a movie theater, or in church, or in a mall, or at a school, or anywhere for that matter, by someone who just wants to shoot bullets at a lot of people for reasons that have nothing at all to do with me. Off the top of my head, I can think of more than two dozen people who felt this ( Read more... )

Want to know how to sound like the biggest asshole in America in 2011 at the height of a recession, record unemployment, rollbacks on women's and voter's rights, and a government fueled entirely by nastiness? I'll show you:
( Abandon all perspective, ye who enter here )

My wife has just returned from some very difficult work overseas; she has spent the past countless days using the brains, tenacity, and loyalty I love more than anything to protect our country and the men and women in uniform who have volunteered to risk their lives on the front lines. Together we have been re-acclimating her to our lives and our ( Read more... )

I first met him that August. He sat in a park at One Liberty Plaza, New York, New York, tucked in a corner, glancing into his briefcase. He lived in harmony with the workers and tourists meandering through the area; he paid them no mind, nor they him.


( Read more... )

I wasn't close enough to call him a friend. I wasn't distant enough to call him an acquaintance. I don't know what I should call him. I have always wanted to know him better, but our lives didn't sync up enough, as sometimes happens. He has existed almost exclusively through Facebook posts and my friends. I can tell you this for sure: I liked him a ( Read more... )

This isn't the first time I've driven home from the airport, knowing I won't be seeing my wife for months; it's the fourth. By now, we've gotten really good at the packing and the financial planning and the chaos and me spending the next several days cleaning up the house. But I would be naive, not to mention stupid, if I believed for one minute ( Read more... )

I am, quite literally, physically ill from all of the irrational, hateful, avaricious, divisive, childish discourse and philosophy coming from our political leaders and from many of their followers right now. Is this really what the United States of America is going to be in the 21st century ( Read more... )

It's been a rough few days.

I, for the most part, have remarkable confidence in my abilities as a writer. I've put a lot of time and effort into getting better, and I'm generally pleased with the results. In fact, it's impossible for me to view the terse form letters I've received this weekend as any sort of critique of my writing. After all, the ( Read more... )