J. K. Rowling’s criticism of Donald Trump is raising hackles on the internet. His loyal fans, once her loyal fans, are behaving like jilted lovers and threatening to burn their Harry Potter books in retaliation. Rowling says, “Go ahead. I’ve still got your money.” (Click)  Pr

In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne imagined deep water submarines.  In I, Robot, Isaac Asimov dreamed of machines with personalities.  J. K. Rowling envisioned an invisibility cloak in Harry Potter.  Why take note of this?  Because, so often, fiction imagines po

In “Hollywood and Divine,” James Wolcott ruminates on the pluses and minuses of giving television fans what they want. (Vanity Fair, June 2014, pgs. 68-73.)  While considering the question, he explores some of the more popular programs since Twin Peaks and the X-File — stor

To be a writer is to court two things: a) rejection and b) people who want to sell you promotion services. As sure as dead bodies attract blow flies, both encounters are inescapable.  Believe me, no one knows a sure way to shatter the glass barrier between wannabe authors and top sel

I was having coffee with a friend, recently, Peter Kasting, a fellow author who, sadly, has stopped writing. His last book, written several years ago, was a work of science fiction: Journey of a Thousand Miles. In it, cities had mysteriously become poisoned wastelands, forcing survivo

I love it when my blog readers send me articles. One I received, recently, was in reference to my remarks about J.K. Rowling’s new mystery, The Cuckoo’s Calling, which she wrote under the pen name, Robert Galbraith. (Aug 6, 2013) The book sold 1500 copies before the identity of th

J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter book saga, has been unmasked as the author of a new detective mystery, The Cuckoo’s Calling. She wrote it under the pseudonym, Robert Galbraith, hoping to escape inevitable comparisons between her youth series and her adult fiction. Her first