Building Castles on the Beach

This isn't the place we rented, but it looked something like this. Back in July, my extended family met in Vail  for our sort-of-annual meeting of the minds. I was the first sibling to arrive, with my wife and childrens, which meant that every time any of the other five sibs and their broods arrived, I was obligated to help unpack their automobiles and lug their stuff into the house. We had rented a three-story chalet (four, including the basement garage) with about seventeen bedrooms and a steep stairway up from the garage to the third floor. I was winded before I ever finished emptying my own car, and by the time the last group arrived and people were assisted up to their dormitories, I could barely breathe. I of course know that the altitude in the mountains makes it more difficult to suck in the air you need. But I live in Denver, so it's not like I was coming from sea level to the Continental Divide. And I've visited Vail--and higher altitudes--enoug...

Inspired by Charlie "The Skunk Whisperer" at Notice Your World , I've been meaning to write this up for a while now. I decided his drawings would better illustrate my story than any stock photo stolen from the web, so I've asked him to guest-art my blog today.  He's also recently published his novel, The Crystal Bridge . For only 3.99$, you should check it out, though you won't find any drawings of rabid rodents. Mature trees shade most of our backyard. Beds of roses and tulips and peonies line the fencing covered in clinging vines. After a rainy week, our yard tends more toward jungle, but that's the way we like it, hidden away back here in our neighborhood that will never be called gentrified. That is, until the nuclear mutant squirrels attacked. The first year we moved in, we ordered expensive, special new windows installed. With windows that weren't 300 years old and sliding out of the frames, our home was considerably warmer. But soon af...

I'm participating in the Worst Movies Ever blogfest sponsored by sci-fi author  Alex Cavanaugh . And I've decided to implicate myself, as I happen to own every movie on this list. That is to say, I've watched each of them multiple times and take pleasure from each of them in at least some minor way. But essentially, they are flawed. And I think it's more interesting to talk about why these relatively entertaining movies are bad than trying to re-explain why Howard the Duck or Battlefield Earth flopped. Thus, in no apparent order except alphabetical because that's how they appear on my DVD shelf: Avatar It sure is a fun movie to watch in 3D (which I'm never going to experience again) and it certainly changed the movie industry, but few people seem to want to discuss that it's recycled, predictable plot is Fern Gully with giant fairies instead of miniature ones? I half expect Christain Slater to make a cameo. James Cameron's unforgivable story t...

Corny title aside, this weekend I was at the Colorado Gold Writer's Conference here in Denver. It was brought to you by the letter L and the number 13 and the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers . So here I am blogging about it instead of writing. Instead of putting the finishing touches on Trendy Poseurs Go Home . This was much grander than the conference I went to in San Francisco in July. There, it was about 50 people, in a small conference room at a Best Western. I didn't even have to check in when I arrived. I could have just walked in and pretended I belonged. Who needs to register and pay? Not that that conference wasn't worth it. I ended up with a pitch that worked well enough to convince three agents to request partials of my Trendy Poseurs manuscript. I was pleased with that outcome. I am still awaiting responses from two of those agents. One has already responded. Just two days before the Gold Conference, I received a gracious email that said they thought I w...

I usually like to write my own stuff, or at least write wordy responses to stuff other people write, but today I feel the need to just pass this one along, with minimal commentary. In a New York Times op-ed piece,  "In Honor of Teachers," Charles Blow writes about the contradiction that even though teachers are vilified more and more these days, most of us want to recruit good students to become teachers. I am a teacher these days and I have a hard time recommending that any of my students pursue the profession. And I teach honors and IB courses. One student, possibly one of the brightest students I've ever had, recently asked me about what it's like as an English major in college. I told her it's awesome and that she would be great at it, but the problem is that once you're done, you have three options: teach, attend grad school in some other area, or just go get a job somewhere and impress random people with your knowledge of Beowulf or Victorian feminis...