TWEETMENT by Leigh Lundin In a recent column about the Apple iPad, I speculated what might happen if Star Trek officers used Twitter:     @Troi: Leaving Rigel VII; Riker was like so all hands on deck Where’s my iPenicillin?     @Captain: Secret mission to Alpha Centauri to kick Klingon butt. Don’t tell Worf! […]

EASY DOES IT (SOMETIMES) by John M. Floyd 1 Like all of you, I have favorite authors. All I have to do to list mine is to turn around and look at the books on the shelves of my home office: Coben, King, McMurtry, Conroy, Evanovich, Francis, Barr, Sakey, DeMille, Westlake, Hiaasen, Burke, Block, Leonard, […]

POMEGRANATE SEASON by Steven Steinbock 1 This isn’t the first time I’ve written about pomegranates. I did it here way back in December, 2008. It bears mention again. In fact, it bears more than mere mention. I never quite know when to expect pomegranates in the stores. Whenever I’ve asked the produce people at supermarkets, […]

SEDUCED FROM THE PATH by Deborah Elliott-Upton “Depend upon it, after all, Thomas, Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path.” —Edgar Allan Poe to Frederick W. Thomas (February 14, 1849) This […]

THE LONG RED LIGHT by Rob Lopresti So, I am bicycling home. I reach the busiest corner on the trip, one of the busiest intersections in this small city. There are three lanes in each direction. I arrive just as the light is turning yellow, a little too late to go through, so I know […]

PEDICURE by Melodie Johnson Howe I’m sitting in a large, beige, leather massage chair. A young Asian woman whose name is Diane is giving me a pedicure. My life is frantic. My daughter is getting married this Saturday, and I am deep in revisions of my new novel. I have come here to relax and […]

PHONING IT IN by James Lincoln Warren I read a novel last week by a best-selling mystery writer, which I found myself not liking very much. In keeping with my invariable practice of not criticizing living writers, since I begrudge no writer his success, I will withhold the author’s name, but the problem with the […]