DEPARTMENT OF ODD SOCKS V by Rob Lopresti I just finished reading When The Women Come Out To Dance, and relearned what a great short story writer Elmore Leonard is. One of the interesting things about Dutch, as he is known, is that he sometimes tries out a character in a story before starring them […]

DIGGING CRIME by Rob Lopresti A year ago this week I was volunteering on an archaeological dig in Israel. Naturally I am feeling nostalgic, wondering how my buddies at Ramat Rachel are coping without me this season. («Lopresti? Was he the fat guy who hogged popsicles at breaktime?»)  In honor of them I will tell you […]

A PLEA FOR UNITY by Rob Lopresti I have written here before, probably too often, about my series of stories about mystery writer Leopold Longshanks. My least favorite of the bunch is "Shanks Gets Mugged". It isn’t a bad story, I think, but it lacks unity, and worse, the whole series lacks unity because of […]

For several months, construction near my residence has interfered with internet reception. Yesterday afternoon, utility companies dug into my neighbor’s yard with the result I do not have internet service. This comes at a particularly inconvenient time while James is in Africa and I could not post our guest article by midnight. At 3a I […]

UNDERWORKED and OVERHEARD by Rob Lopresti I just got back from  music camp.  My wife did most of the music while I spent the week writing a big chunk of what I (and the publisher) hope will be my next novel. Since I was surrounded by a crowd of strangers, I thought this was an […]

THE READINESS IS ALL by Rob Lopresti Photo by Rob Lopresti Thursday night I was watching a concert, having a wonderful time, when I was blindsided by an idea for a story. Normally the first thing I do at a time like that is pull out my notebook and write it down so I won’t […]

PATRIOTIC GORE by Rob Lopresti This being the week of the Fourth of July I would like to say a few words about one of our country’s most successful exports. We didn’t invent it, but we have certainly helped spread it around. In fact, this product has become so popular that even countries which objectively […]