We should challenge the relativism that tells us there is no right or wrong, when every instinct of our mind knows it is not so, and is a mere excuse to allow us to indulge in what we believe we can get away with. A world without values quickly becom...
A narrative is like a room on whose walls a number of false doors have been painted; while within the narrative, we have many apparent choices of exit, but when the author leads us to one particular door, we know it is the right one because it opens.
There's something to be said about a girl who knows what she wants. One of my favorite girls to dress is Diane Kruger. It's always so easy with her. I know her body and what works. When it's right, it's not a lot of effort.
If you write chick lit, and if you're a New Yorker, and if your book becomes the topic of pop-culture fascination, the paper might make dismissive and ignorant mention of your book. If you write romance, forget about it. You'll be lucky if they spell...
liberty, which means resisting all forms of cultural authoritarianism, be it from the right wing church, black ideologues, black nationalists, or mainstream white media. We have to accent liberty and freedom of expression and thought in all their for...
I was like any new bride, who said, 'I'm going to cook for my man.' In fact, once I started a small kitchen fire in a pan. Smoke was pouring from the pan, and I got really scared. Right next to our stove is a small fire extinguisher. You know, easy a...
Battered women who were physically abused as children develop an active coping style as adults, typically with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. It is as if she can "just get things right" then the battering will stop. Those who were sexually abused a...
I was working in corporate Canada and I was doing all right. But I was burnt out... Long hours, a lot of clients. I just wanted to get away. Track and field was sort of like the elimination thing. I just wanted to go and do something. Exercise my bra...
I liked making people laugh, and I decided I was an atheist early on. My Dad was all right with that. We argued about it all the time, but it was good-natured. He was the most open-minded human being I've ever known.
'Star Wars,' 'Doctor Who,' 'Forgotten Realms,' even 'Firefly' and 'The X-Files' have shared world novels and other media. I can't help but notice these settings have large shelf space in bookstores, so their publishers and authors are getting somethi...
I've always been a very careful sailor. I know, me and being careful - doesn't really sound right, does it? But when I sail, I take it seriously and take along spares for everything. You have to be careful when you're 1,500 miles from land. There's n...
Anyone working in the media can tell you that there seems to be an always-ready-to-explode segment of the populace for whom offense is a fate worse than anything imaginable. You'd think offense is one of the most calamitous things that could happen t...
If you have a relative who's lost interest in everything and doesn't get out of bed, who doesn't care for things they used to, can't imagine anything that would give them any pleasure, don't fool around with it; get therapy, get help, get medication ...
I'm a visual thinker. Research tells us that only 20 per cent of people think visually. So what about the other 80 per cent? Don't they think in pictures? I mean if you imagine washing and preparing potatoes you visualise the process, right?
How many people are watching a movie right now, or reading a book or listening to a song or looking into their life or dreaming with this profound, conscious or not, yearning more than anything for some kind of relationship somewhere with someone or ...
Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: 'We don't serve colored people here.' "I said: 'that's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.
Tolerance. In all my years of debating politics and religion no mind was changed with derision and no thought convicted by way of harshness. You have no right to demand tolerance while deriding others and their beliefs in the process. Want tolerance?...
I wish I had never got manic depression. When I was in junior high, I didn't know what was the matter with me. It was as if I'd died or something. Now that I go to a clinic and get the right kind of medicine, I am not as depressed as I used to be.
The right question to ask from a Darwinian prospective is what was it about bipedalism that was so advantageous? Why did it lead to a - why did that adaptation ultimately lead to a species Homo sapiens that has come to dominate the planet today with ...
a woman lives behind this door, and she writes with the door open to the night. she writes with the door open to the seasons, even winter, though perhaps less so then. there are birds who visit. right now she is having a drink with a friend; she clos...
We get heroes with impossible abilities and heroines with strengths we can only dream of. And for a little while, we are those characters. That hero is in love with us. That heroine is you, the reader, and you are all kinds of powerful. And you might...
