Author: Ben East
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Review–Memoir from Paraguay
Latest review posted at Peace Corps Worldwide, home for Peace Corps-affiliated writers who publish stories from around the world. Mark Salvatore writes simple, declarative sentences. His Peace Corps memoir, Shade of the Paraiso, is stripped to fact and detail, observation and truth. Even its replication of time — passing slowly at first, building inexorably over months,…
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Levity with Brevity
My copy of Flash Nonfiction Funny cometh! I hope the wait’s as brief as the material—rib-tickling bites of 750 words or less compiled by editors Tom Hazuka and Dinty W. Moore (yes). As the book makes its way to my doorstep, I’m looking at the anthology’s 71 contributors (including myself) and the first name to…
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Debut Fiction Review–Love Is the Punch Line
Kathleen Jones’ debut novel should be appearing tomorrow. It’s a spinning yo-yo of ups and downs in hysterical pursuit of middle-aged romance. Advance review: Outside observers might wonder what middle-aged romantics Josh Steinberg and Holly Brannigan see in each other, beyond the mirror image of their mutual loneliness. In Kathleen Jones’s debut novel, Love Is…
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The NRA’s Chosen People
As I watched Charlton Heston lead the chosen people out of Egypt last night I wondered: in a remake of The Ten Commandments, would Ted Nugent play Moses? Nugent, whose awful music from the 1970s apparently qualifies him to talk down to us about such weighty matters as constitutional law, seems to be the NRA’s…
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Introducing: Cowboy Herold
Sharing his thoughts on a fresh draft of my novel in progress, the contract illustrator proclaims: This whole thing is, like, so hilarious! Best of all, the 4th grader can barely utter consecutive syllables without breaking into fits of hysterics as he tries to describe the characters. His cheeks stretch too wide for speech at…
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Opening Day
MLB opens today. With the game on my mind, I revisit how a small deformity of mine became an asset in fiction for the narrator—an all star pitcher—of my first published story. My thumb, badly slashed on New Years Eve by the broken neck of a champagne bottle, never healed properly. After surgery to reconnect…
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How about some free days? — Entertaining Stories
MLB Opening day tomorrow. In that spirit, and in keeping with my recent series about baseball, sports, and writing, I’m taking this rare measure of re-blogging the announcement of fellow blogger C.S. Boyack. Hope you’ll take him up on his offer of a copy of the Enhanced League on Kindle. Once upon a time, I…
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How We Write
Writing is physical. Writing is athletic. Writing requires the same discipline of a dedicated athlete in pursuit of peak performance. I note this, not to be repetitive, but as a corollary to my series on Little League and the trajectory of sports in life for me. These things are one and the same: the first…
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Little League VI: The Wrap
Now spring has brought us out to baseball again. I’m coaching my sons. The last four years, I’ve coached my sons at baseball. Baseball always meant a lot to me, though I was neither the fastest nor the strongest nor the most reliable at the bat. Still, I know enough about the game, and enough…
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Little League V: Ironman
Team sports weren’t for me. I didn’t compete again for a decade. Inspired by my brother, I picked up triathlon. I biked to work through the winter months in New York, swam at Brooklyn College after teaching, ran with the Roadrunners led by an aging postal worker. I competed in my first event in Tampa/St.…
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