Blog Marketing Our Buddy, the Faceless Corporation Marketing of Brands Has Gone Too Far with Attempts to be Authentic
Essay IQ Test by Attrition I took my daughter to the pediatrician. We were sitting in the waiting room with all the other folks and kids. Mostly moms. There are a lot of moms who go to doctors with children. I was basically in a big room full of moms.
Essay Holy Holiday Lies It’s a question my nine-year-old daughter asked me this morning while I was flossing. She means the Elf on the Shelf, a slice of corporate industry holiday fruit cake so many of us have but nobody really wants.
Essay Ten Hours of Drinking Brian (his real name) and I sit inside at a cafe table. We are in the Championship Clubhouse of the football stadium. The Pittsburgh…
Essay A Life off the Grid I am in the shower, standing under the hot rain and waiting for the next great idea. The shower thoughts do not come. I can only think about the washcloth being a Velcro mat for body hair. Is this the best we can do?
Essay The Insidious American Diet I am at swim practice. My daughter swims. You know, swimming. Suit. Goggles. Water.
Blog My First Novel is Just a Story that I Want to Tell My years-long journey to tell it 500 words at a time
Essay When Your Characters Won’t Go To Bed I am sitting on the couch with my wife. Between us is an elf, a twenty something warrior-politician from an agrarian, pre-industrial earth…
Essay We Really Don’t Know Anything A king led his people in their tiny empire. They lived by the sea and caught fishes and made textiles from materials harvested in nearby…
Blog God Did Not Have a Plan For Me My Journey To Find Fulfillment When I was younger, I wondered what to do for a career. I was told God had a plan, and I needed to seek it. Once I discovered what it was, I would have found my meaning in life.
Essay Time Travel is a One Way Street. I made a mistake. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I take one last Polaroid of myself in the mirror, set the camera down and flap the paper back and forth to encourage the exposure. I write the numbers on it and tape my picture on the wall. Then I go outside and follow the path.
Blog How to Write a Novel It was a dark and stormy … Hey BRAD you spilled your greek yogurt on my freaking MacBook Pro, dude! Can you PLEASE just stay on your side…
Essay That Time Aliens Took Over My Children A weird thing happened to me this morning: Both of my children got out of bed after only asking them one time. Then they pleasantly dressed themselves, ate a full breakfast of exactly what I made for them, and walked into school on time. Early, actually.
Blog The Difficult Life of a Novelist I tried to look tough. Two guys with their sleeves cut off were walking a super vicious dog across the street at the corner. I steered my vehicle into the turn, windows down. I knew from my days on the streets: sleevelessness always means business.
Blog For Dads Who Plan on Dying I just read a Medium post from a man in his thirties who was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, his last recurring blog post was from the summer of 2019 in late July, a few months after his cancer returned.
Essay The Habit of Graduate School I am two semesters away from my third master’s degree. Earning mastery. Again. A third time. I’m talking about fourteen semesters of school after getting my regular, college undergraduate degree. At this point, graduate school is basically a morning routine. An expensive one.
Essay Discipline by Zen That thing where you threaten to pull over the car, and then you do? I did that.
