BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN by Robert Lopresti An archaeology student I know is going off to Rome this summer. I urged her to go to one of my favorite museums, the Baths of Diocletian. What draws me to it is not that I am such a fan of baths (I generally prefer showers). Most of the […]

DIMMABLE by Melodie Johnson Howe Dimmable. This is a word that describes the new ecological light bulbs as compared to the old ecological ones that could not be dimmed. These bulbs are not really bulbs. They are long coils. My husband loves them. He has put them in our library where they hang below the […]

WARREN’S LAWS by James Lincoln Warren Criticism says more about the critic than the piece being criticized. Length of critical comments are directly proportional to the size of the critic’s ego. Good criticism is terse and specific. Uninformed opinions are meaningless. Creativity without craft is futile. Craft without creativity is dull. The problem with living […]

115 and COUNTING by Leigh Lundin I grew up in Shelby County, Indiana. It’s a land of covered bridges, county fairs, tractor pulls, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, soapbox derbies, and pioneer stories. When I was a kid, people didn’t lock their doors, really. They didn’t lock up their daughters either, which was a wonderful […]

THANKS BUT NO THANKS by John M. Floyd I’ve decided, for this week’s Mississippi mudpie, to write about a subject I really understand. I can hear some of you now, saying that that might not be an easy task, for me. Well, you’re wrong. There’s one thing about fiction — specifically short fiction — that […]

TROUBLE IS MY BUSINESS by Steve Steinbock Each year, publicly held companies distribute booklets to their stockholders. These booklets, cleverly called Annual Reports, contain financial statements and analyses, letters from the CEO, and restatements of the company’s philosophy and scope. Not, in my view, particularly interesting reading. One exception was Marvel, the comic book publisher, […]

A DAILY DOSE by Deborah Elliott-Upton Last year I was invited to participate in a fund raiser for The Writing Academy. The book, Daily Devotions for Writers, was compiled by Patricia Lorenz and edited by her and my good friend, Melanie Rigney, and is so hot off the presses it’s sizzling. Between the covers live […]