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God’s Marine, and a Gallant Fool
I remember distinctly one particular Christmas evening from late childhood. Supper was done and the chairs pushed back and maybe a glass or two of wine had been drunk, and my Old Time Catholic family...
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Where Our New Historians?
Book research takes you on odd tangents, and so it was that this past week I have been watching a lot of YouTube documentaries on the Syrian civil war. Matthew VanDyke is not a typical filmmaker (he is...
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The Igon Value Problem of Essays
A few months ago I had a number of essays rejected by major magazines and a few thoughtful websites. I’m telling you because 1) I’m over it and 2) I don’t take it personally; based on type of feedback...
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A Story’s Soundtrack
Like many writers, I am sure, I subconsciously develop a soundtrack when working. I can’t actually listen to music while I write (it’s too distracting), but in my head I do have samples on repeat, an...
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War (What’s It Good For?)
Earlier this month I sat on a war writer’s panel with Katey Schultz, and she said something extraordinary. Asked why she, a woman with little to no connection to the military, would choose to write so...
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A Year in Reading, a Year in Review
Who needs another list? No one, that’s who. I get nostalgic and sentimental at the end of the year (even more so, I should say) like everyone else, and I do plenty of reflection, make plans for the...
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A Sudden Question
What an odd cultural moment, that since the new year much of America – veterans and their families, sure, but many others outside of our community too – would suddenly decide to ask now (finally?) if...
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Olympic Hibernation
I love the Olympics, and not just a little bit. No, I lurve the Olympics, and so today is a bit of a bi-annual Christmas Eve. Tonight I’ll dream of the agony of defeat, and wake up with timpani drums...
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The Unknown Polish Sappers
Unknown in this country, anyway. Well remembered in Poland; how little most Americans understand of the horrors of the Eastern Front of World War II. On the 1st of August, 1944, with the Americans and...
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On Reading Ulysses and Moby Dick at the Same Time
This winter, on a whim, I conducted a new reading experiment. If you are like me, you have a giant “To Read” pile of books, and within that pile the volumes fall into three basic categories: new books,...
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Amputee or Cripple?
Last year for Memorial Day, I wrote a piece for The Daily Beast about Technical Sergeant Adam Popp, an EOD operator who was blown up while disarming a bomb stuffed in a culvert outside Gardez,...
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An Empire’s Luxury
Last week I was at dinner with a friend in Manhattan, at one of those restaurants where the line of tables against the wall are so crammed together that your neighbor’s conversation can not help but to...
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How I Resolved to Stop Buying From Amazon, and What I Discovered After
I have a guilty secret, and it is implied in the above headline. Yes, I have long known of Amazon’s poor labor practices, hardball price reduction tactics, manipulation of publishers large and small,...
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Workshopping in the Woods
The gentleness of John Sheehy reveals itself only after the first impression has time to fade. John is a big man with the body of a boxer, triceps that stretch the sleeves of his shirt and bird legs...
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Writing at Chautauqua
I’m in-residence at the Chautauqua Institution this week, and the writers in my workshop have me hopping, reading blog posts about riding bikes, financial planning, the direction of medical research,...
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Finally, A Nail
I didn’t know that photojournalist James Foley and I shared an alma mater until this morning, when my Facebook feed reported the news via the local Milwaukee newspaper. An unexpected personal...
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Just When I Thought I Was Out They Pull Me Back In
Every writer is from somewhere. I’m from Buffalo, and so this has to be a story about the Buffalo Bills. Maybe explaining the terribly photo-shopped picture will help. On the right side of the original...
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Everything All the Time
I’m not sure how many NPR stories in a row it took for me to finally figure it out. At least a few. A few weeks ago, the morning lineup went like this: a story on the resurgence of vinyl records, then...
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Afghanistan War Lit, for the LA Review of Books
The LA Review of Books just published my longform essay on the nascent literature of the Afghan war. They gave me a lot of space – it’s the second longest thing I have ever published, only the book is...
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The Last Weekend of the Season
This is a blog about the wonders of the Scrambler breakfast at the Hardtimes Café. This is not a blog about the six hour hike up Giant Mountain that proceeded the breakfast the day before. Nor is it a...
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