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2018
Resolution: Let’s be deliberate in the year ahead. Let’s choose our time and our course and our actions with a certainty in what we hope to achieve. I’ll begin January working on the novel that will serve as a gift for my second son, who turns eight in July. That work will continue steadily during… Read more
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Uncle Sam, Matchmaker
I pictured myself in a Peace Corps-issue hammock on an island somewhere, or crossing high glaciers in the glaring Himalayan sun. Then the recruiter called and offered Malawi. Pointless to remind her what I’d written where the application asked my preference: ‘Anywhere but Africa.’ Before that call, a recruiter—maybe the same recruiter—offered another would-be… Read more
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Mexico Time
We are waiting on a shuttle from the Cancun airport (CUN) to Puerto Morelos, half an hour south. The driver checks on some paperwork after shoving a couple dozen suitcases into the rear. Sweating in the sun, he reviews his clipboard, makes a call, consults his coworkers dressed in matching tropical shirts. The Americans behind… Read more
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Sharing Short Fiction
Good friend, great colleague, and talented writer Linda McMullen had this short fiction published this past winter’s Solstice at Typishly. It’s wry, smart, and tight, and it begins like this: The Announcement by LINDA MCMULLEN He was the product of a torrid affair between an Edith Wharton novel and a J. Crew catalogue, with his wavy Titian… Read more
Ben East Books 