THE SNAKE, THE CROCODILE, AND THE READER by Rob Lopresti I believe I may truthfully claim that I have never been daunted by danger or drudgery. That’s the first sentence of a novel, and not a great first sentence in my opinion (although I like the lilting alliteration). But it leads into a remarkable opening […]

During his lifetime, English author Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was one of the most popular writers of crime fiction in the world. Over 160 of his stories were adapted for the cinema. Today he is best remembered as the author of King Kong. This week and next, I offer this South African tale as […]

THE SEVEN PER CENT SOLUTION by James Lincoln Warren Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon […]

SPEECH IS FREE Recording it isn’t. by Leigh Lundin In the early dawn, police burst into the home of Maryland Air National Guard Staff Sergeant Anthony Graber, frightening his parents, his wife, and his two young children. In the course of the hour and a half raid, authorities detained Graber’s mother and sister, preventing them […]

DASHES AND SPLATS by John M. Floyd Sounds like a football game, right? Actually, I’m referring to marks of punctuation. And since we at this blog are writers ourselves, and have already done a number of columns about punctuation and several about the titles of stories/novels/movies, well, today I thought I’d put those two subjects […]

SCHRODINGER’S CUP by Steven Steinbock Twenty-five years ago or so, my sister was spending a year in Denmark as part of a college exchange program. During that year she took a trip through several European countries. One of the first stops was Venice, where she saw a cute Venetian glass Kiddush cup that she bought […]

TAKING PEN IN HAND by Deborah Elliott-Upton There’s something special about actually putting pen to paper. It’s as different from composing a story on a computer as it is to receive a hand-written letter instead of an e-mail. The content may be the same, but the delivery is so impersonal. Pressed for time, digital responses […]