When I sat down in 2012 to create the protagonist of Let the Glory Pass Away, a middle-aged, blocked South Carolina novelist named Cort Beauchamp, I knew I wanted him to seem like a character out of time.
With the publication date rapidly approaching and a book release event in the works, we wrap up 2016 with the final “Notes On…” LTGPA. This interview was conducted via email with Catherine A. Shuler, my publicist and partner in Mind Harvest Press. Enjoy.
QUESTIONS OF CHARACTER Five years ago when I first sat down to draft my upcoming novel, I intended to do so in one fell swoop, a nonstop creative endeavor bringing to bear all my experience and purported talent. By this, my fifth longform manuscript, I felt not only eager but seasoned to prove how fully cogent and […]
Edgewater County, South Carolina… I write about it, but where is it? While it’s been said by some—well, by me—that the county lies due east of Due West and somewhere north of North, I’m sorry to report that you won’t find Edgewater County on any map, and in trying to find it, your GPS will spin in […]
Clay B and me, front of board, mics well hidden, we made a fine, fine tape. Not my best writing, this haiku, but I composed it while grieving over the news that my old friend Clay had passed away, and under personal circumstances of a sudden and tragic nature. Maybe I wanted to cheer myself […]
I’m late to the party on this 2015 New Yorker post, but I found it quite useful and edifying. THE MIDDLE OF THINGS: ADVICE FOR YOUNG WRITERS By Andrew Solomon The following is adapted from a speech the author gave at the Whiting Writers’ Awards on March 5th. When I had just finished my schooling and […]
Some of you may have noticed that Edgewater County Confidential has been dark all summer. Inactive. It’s been quiet around here—too quiet. It’s all good. Two words to keep in mind (with props to Douglas Adams): DON’T PANIC.
In Part One we suffered through a little autobiography about the time I helped honor local pop music heroes Hootie and the Blowfish, and how that got me to thinking about who we honor with public monuments and tributes, but more importantly, why we do so, and what we’re saying with our choices.
“I’ve tried to teach my writing friends that there are two arts: number one, getting a thing done; and then, the second great art is learning how to cut it so you don’t kill it or hurt it in any way. When you start out life as a writer, you hate that job, but now […]
As documented on this blog and elsewhere, in November 2014 I was fortunate and honored to present Fellow Traveler at the national Grateful Dead academic conference called So Many Roads: The World in the Grateful Dead. It happened that my panel included Rolling Stone and Men’s Journal contributing editor David Browne, who had a new biography of the […]
