If you are interested in the craft of writing, Steve Almond's book is a must-have. Written with sincerity and verve and a sense of humor, Truth Is The Arrow is also a memoir of Steve's writing career including time spent at Florida International University and in John Dufresne's Friday Night Writers. Steve Almond is the author of a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, including All The Secrets of the World and Candyfreak. This current book is a masterpiece of shared insights from thirty years of writing, teaching and workshop mentoring. Buy it    HERE at Amazon or here at Books&Books. Clicking either link takes you to the site. The chapter on rendering the inner life stands out:

From page 183: "To focus on the inner life today--to read books, to imaging with no ulterior agenda, to reflect on painful or confusing experiences--is to defy the clamoring edicts of our age, the buy messages, the endless pleas for followers and likes.

Writers have to find a different way of being in the world. The making of literature is the manner by which we come to understand our inner lives, by which we travel in difficult truth toward elusive mercy, and thereby reaffirm the bonds of human kindness.

I am speaking here of something that goes beyond the fate of our work, or the brief span of our lives. I am speaking of the man, or the woman, who stands in silence at the top of the stairs, just a few seconds longer, feeling the ghost of his beloved mother in his arms, rocking her back and forth, back and forth."

 Relief update:

Now that we're moving into the Winter of our Discontent, I find that what will be needed in the coming months is not hurricane relief,  though that is a major concern for me and all my friends and family. The various agencies helping are getting support and help from millions around the country. But what I see is the danger of an anti-Woke government encouraging prejudice against Art and Artists. You know the new Administration is going to be trying to defund the arts, public broadcasting, libraries, subversive literature as they will define it, and the teaching of classic liberal values. Banning books has already demonstrated that Freedom of Expression is now under fire. Why keep kids from reading the world's greatest literature?

I'm such a sucker for good causes. I do want to Save the World. I want to feed the hungry, house the homeless, heal the sick, clothe the naked, rebuild all the broken homes and businesses. I still buy Biggie Bags from Wendy's for the bums on US 1.  That's a personal thing.

Dedicating a website is a different story. I'm a writer, not a millionaire. I'm a reader, not a politician. What I've learned over these last years is that there is a community of writers and readers who sincerely want to help. Now I see that community is about to be attacked. There will be closings of Liberal Arts programs in every university in America. There will be dedicated teachers and professors fired for teaching the vision of America they grew up with. The networks will be loaded with MAGA propaganda as anyone who opposes that dark vision is prosecuted and harassed. Free elections will cease as we know them, replaced by restricted voting for friends of the Man Who Would Be King. Public health will be at risk for millions of Americans as Anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists take charge of agencies once meant to help. The rich will get richer. By the time the middle class figure out their 401Ks are about to collapse, it will be too late. The people who brought our grandparents the first Great Depression will bring the next. War will be seen as a financial decision, good for the Economy. But will we have any allies?

Of course, I could be wrong. We might be heading into the next Golden Era. America will be great again. 

We'll see. Meanwhile, I will build a website for writers to share with readers, students, teachers and all the artists, all the musicians, all the people who care. Writers4Relief just WOKE up.

 The 40th Miami Book Fair ended Sunday evening, after thousands of visitors from around the world came and enjoyed beautiful weather, great music, exhibits of every cool thing on this planet, and readings by authors we all know and love. I worked our booth, the South Florida Writers Association, with displays of over 50 books written by our members, including Sea of Tranquility: A Literary Anthology compiled from contributions of poetry and short pieces members contributed for a trip to the Moon as part of the Lunar Codex. It was fun working with Don Daniels setting up the booth, and sharing space with Gladys Barrios, C.V. Shaw, Regine Fisher, Anita Mitchell, Ramesh Nyberg, and others to promote their books and encourage new membership.

And you know what? There was no Protest Against Books organized by those who prefer Banning Books to reading them. They would have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for literacy over ignorance. You don't see Ugly People standing outside Beauty Pageants complaining. Same here.

 The Miami Book Fair is open at the Miami Dade College Wolfson campus. Thursday I will be helping Don Daniels set up the South Florida Writers Association booth. We will have books from members on display and a Featured Writer table going Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Stop by and visit. I'll be there as much as I can. There are several writers I will be looking for and will attend readings whenever I can.

The Street Fair should enjoy wonderful weather, cool and sunny and comfortable for walking around.

See you there!

 Writers4Relief update:

Writers4relief

I owe everyone an update on my project. Right now, the website has 3 pages up and by the end of the day I expect to have integrated my Shopify store into the website, with a current list of my books and prices showing. I have enabled PayPal Business for merchant services. As it grows, the website will feature authors who have provided support by sending stories, poems and essays to use to raise funds for the relief agencies. 

Which is another to-do: I must prepare a letter to send to interested writers outlining why we're doing this and how it will work. Basically, in exchange for something that we can publish or something published that we can sell, writers will receive marketing support that might otherwise cost quite a bit of money, including Biographies, web-links, blog backstories, excerpts from upcoming works, and Buy Now links to their existing books and publisher pages. And of course, they will be provided an accounting of sales and donations, and be publicly thanked for doing something to help ease the suffering of disaster victims. A heroes list, kind of. 

In addition, I am having made T-shirts and coffee mugs and stickers for all purposes. While learning how to synch a Shopify card reader, for onsite sales at book fairs and charity events, I am doing things I wished I had learned 15 years ago. 

I will be applying for a Kickstarter grant once the business plan and resources are completed. If you think you would like to support this Kickstarter project, let me know at ncrab4you@gmail.com. It will be necessary to fund the project and its marketing campaign for several months to get it to support itself. People can't help if they don't know what you're doing. And at a certain point, I need the project to be self-sufficient so I can get back to writing. I need it to be something that can be run at a very high standard by people younger than me with the same driving interest: Let's Do Something.

 

I enjoyed working with the team at South Florida Writers Association to create this literary anthology. What sets this book apart is its ultimate destination: THE MOON. 

"Would you like to send a poem or a short story to the moon? That was the question delivered to over one hundred South Florida Writers Association creatives-and the race was on to craft and deliver.

The result is this anthology, on which pages you find thoughtful poetry and prose written with a love for what connects us to our moon. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed compiling this collection that will journey to the moon as part of the Lunar Codex Project.

This project began on July 30th of 2024 when Dr. Samuel Peralta, founder of the Lunar Codex, a stunning collection of the works of contemporary writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers from all over the world, contacted poet Howard Camner and asked him to put together an anthology for the Polaris Collection of the Codex that would be launched to the moon and remain there in perpetuity. Camner contacted Mort Laitner, President of the SFWA to come aboard as co-editor. The best of the best was compiled, and the rest, quite literally, is history. As Dr. Peralta has stated: "The Sea of Tranquility Anthology brings together the voices of scores of poets and authors in tribute to humanity and its yearnings, to look upward, outward, to imagine, to dream."

This is a terrific collection of poetry and short pieces from SFWA creators. I'm proud to have my poem

"The Moon And I Walk The Dog" included, and to have worked with the team to compile the over 100

 works---all with the moon as theme---into a vibrant and exciting collection. 

The man in the moon is going to be very happy.

Buy at Amazon

Helping Others

You can click the above link to see what I'm working on. I'd like to finish the website this week.

My idea is simple: We're all writers, we're all readers. Books, poems, Facebook posts, song lyrics, emails, postcards, news reports, menus, street signs, graffiti. We buy paperbacks, hard covers and eBooks at our favorite places. We look for good deals, writers we like, stories that interest us, inform us, help us decide what we must do to get on with our lives. 

Suppose in addition to that, suppose every time we bought what we'd like to read, part of the money we spent went to Feeding America, or Doctors Without Borders, or the American Red Cross?

And suppose the writers and musicians and artists we love supplied their short works to make it all work, a functioning partnership between writers and readers to DO SOMETHING to help victims of disasters get food and clothes and medicine. Not just Facebook posts, but writers and readers sharing their time and experiences to let those unfortunate ones know, we care. Here, take what we can give. Tell us how we can do more. 

I think this can work. I'm risking money I don't have and time that is getting short to create a mechanism that receives and delivers help. Everyone I have talked to about this wants in. My faith in humanity has grown quite a bit just hearing good things we can do. I'll keep you posted.