It was a Friday night and I was sitting at my computer studying Google maps. I had to give a speech to more than 200 people the next morning and — given my notoriously bad sense of direction — wanted to be sure I was heading for the right place.

Suddenly, my husband yelled from the basement four words no homeowner wants to hear: "We have a leak."  Continue reading...

Michael Lydon, a well-known writer on popular music since the 1960s, has for many years also been writing about writing. Lydon's essays, written with a colloquial clarity, shed fresh light on familiar and not so familiar aspects of the writing art. Here Lydon shines a light on literary realism, the style by which writers "make the imaginary real and the real imaginary."  Continue reading...

A group of judges is gathered in court. But instead of looking grand and imperial in their robes, they appear to be naked. And, puzzlingly, they are arrayed, under blankets, in a selection of beds spread out behind the bench.  Continue reading...

Michael Lydon, a well-known writer on popular music since the 1960s, has for many years also been writing about writing. Lydon's essays, written with a colloquial clarity, shed fresh light on familiar and not so familiar aspects of the writing art. Here Lydon takes issue with the novelist Elmore Leonard's "rules" against descriptive writing.  Continue reading...

International bestselling author M. J. Rose's The Hypnotist is an adventure, a love story, a clash of cultures, and a spiritual quest. Above all, it is a thrilling capstone to her Reincarnation novels, The Reincarnationist and The Memoirist. Here M.J. shares the inspiration behind her latest novel.  Continue reading...

Michael Lydon, a well-known writer on popular music since the 1960s, has for many years also been writing about writing. Lydon's essays, written with a colloquial clarity, shed fresh light on familiar and not so familiar aspects of the writing art. Here Lydon explores how the best writers speak to us through their singular literary styles.  Continue reading...