Spawned Questions — There’s a wide-open gate out in the middle of nowhere hinges rusted brown with years Who left it open? Gates, as a rule, are closed, or they are in the process of being opened to then be closed, or they are in the process of being closed — especially those…

An Element of Fiction — Have you ever tried to write a story or an essay about something you cared little or nothing about? Hard to get going? I’d say almost impossible to get going. In fact, unless you’re writing purely for money (a hired pen) and have built up a tolerance for such interest-less…

Experiential Aspects of Elements — As the history books tell it, the Greek philosopher Empedocles (493–433 BC) was the first to propose the four classical elements as a set: earth, water, fire, and air. He called them the four “roots” of our universe. Interestingly, the same four elements appeared — and pretty much at the…

A Very Relevant Question — Why Not Earth? Inconceivable, impossible outrageous, unthinkable the adjectives stack up and form a long line ready to attack any notion that Earth might, indeed, be the home to universal salvation This Milky Way backwater? This odd little ball with all that water? This ever war-torn, religion-infested lying, cheating, killing…

In One Long Breath — In the last month of my fiftieth year I turned to air, not air we breathe but air we are, not the moon was the sliverest of a sliver in air we breathe but air we were before lung and nose and we had no need of air as breath…

Virtue vs. Non-Virtue —

Consuming the World to Death — Freedom is Slavery — George Orwell More is Beauty — Thomas Boyer, Jr. When Thomas Boyer, Jr., the richest and most powerful man in all the land, detected that public consumption in all provinces had leveled out and showed no signs of breaking through and ascending what appeared to be…

What Makes Fiction Spring to Life — It was John Gardner, the legendary teacher of the craft, who voiced my challenge. “The elements of fiction,” he said, “like the words in a language, are finite.” Oh, I thought, are they? Let me see. And so, I set out collecting them; or more precisely, I set out collecting…

Our Delimiting Minds —