Storytellersunplugged

My first word was “Boo!” and I’ve loved surprises ever since.  I want to discover things.  Refine that, I want to discover hidden things, things that have meaning.  I want there to be more than five senses can take in.  Five senses are standard issue.  Most critters with fin, skin, fur or feathers have them, often with a superior specialty.  Jack rabbits out-hear me.  Eagles out-see me.  I’m tied with the koala bear.  But word has it that heart, mind and soul ... Read More

By Richard Steinberg “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself,” Ralph Waldo Emerson Our Bear In Mind is deep within the world right now, creating light and words.  And as the world is deeply in need of both light and words, it’s a pleasure to fill in for her today.  I’ll see you again on the 22nd. Abraham Pascal was a writer. True, he was never published.  He lived his ... Read More

Have you ever noticed that the outcomes to life’s most successful quests can’t really be foreseen in detail?  If it’s an initiative that your heart is truly into, then whatever concept you have of success ahead of time, the outcome ends up exceeding it.  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”  But starting out all you can see are the complexities and the problems up front.  The solutions build stroke by stroke like a painting taking on shape and color.  In the ... Read More

A combination of physical difficulties and crazed deadlines have forced me to decide to forego writing a regular blog post, so instead, here's a fun story I wrote to rid myself of a recurring dream.--Janet Berliner      She is fifteen when the dreams invade her nights.     By the time she is not-quite forty, the dreams are like lovers she hates, but cannot live without--frightening her as much by their absence as by their presence.  She finds a new therapist, buys a new notebook, ... Read More

Sorry for the late post (and my first, too!). You’d have to be an idiot to travel on Thanksgiving weekend, right? Well, present and belatedly accounted for. I suppose that being the newest member of Storytellers Unplugged I should take this opportunity to introduce myself. But, well, *@#% that. We can have polite chitchat later, or better yet, go out for a drink sometime. But right now I’m on strike, with ... Read More

By Richard Steinberg This month’s column is dedicated to the sacrifices of Capt. Benjamin D. Tiffner, 31, of West Virginia; 5th Special Forces Group and Staff Sgt. Patrick F. Kutschbach, 25, of Pennsylvania; 10th Special Forces Group. Thank you guys, stand easy. “I've been struggling with this toast for several weeks. Should I strike a melancholy, time passes sort of tone? A humorous, light hearted thing? Maybe stentorian wisdom seasoned with a soupcon of slightly controlled emotion? But instead of such frippery, I decided on ... Read More

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. --T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965) Ah, sometimes the burning bush talks, and instead of an offer for male enhancement drugs by email, you are given the chance to, once again, don the editorial chapeau and... Tally ho! I am now the editor of DOORWAYS, and though publisher Brian Yount has dubbed me Chief Editor or Editor-in-Chief, I do not have or want control of artistic design, in that I can barely perceive ... Read More

I can't afford to look in the mirror. Not the one that looks back anyway. Like Cyrano de Bergerac, I try to hang my adornments on my soul. That way there is no visible evidence to confirm or refute that I have any adornments. I guess breaking even in life is starting to look good to me. For better or worse, it's increasingly difficult for me to motivate myself toward the collective thinking of society. That isn't a lack of respect, but ... Read More

At last year's Book Expo America, I listened to a panel discussion entitled "The State of the Thriller," consisting of several high-profile agents, editors, one notable reviewer and at least two rather successful authors: David Morrell (creator of Rambo, winner of the Stoker and other awards) and James Patterson (the undisputed king of the modern thriller, and author or co-author of roughly 1.7 million separate novels).As the title of the panel suggested, it was meant to be an examination of the modern ... Read More