One of the most effective ways to sell a commodity is to sandwich it between something expensive and something ugly. (read more)

I’d be happy if only my book were finished. (read more)

In a previous job I had the enviable opportunity to counsel undergraduate students in an aviation degree program. The students were mostly full time soldiers and airmen attending college part time. But occasionally a family member would drop in, a teenager or young adult seeking answers to burning questions: Should I become a pilot? And if so, where do I start? (read more)

Two poets each compose five lines—the first poet a set of five questions, the second a set of five answers—and combine them randomly. (read more)

Writer’s block. It’s that phrase we speak tremulously to explain why we aren’t writing or why what we are writing sounds like a page that fell out of a 13-year-old’s diary. It’s a concept that wraps up, in two words, every horrible insecurity we have as writers. (read more)

The day my heart broke was the day I decided to become a writer. From the age of ten I’d wanted to be an astronaut. Granted, the choice wasn’t very original, but originality didn’t concern me at ten, the stars and planets did. It was at ten I received my first eyeglasses. Until then I had only been able to see the brightest stars, maybe twenty or so. The first time I went outside at night wearing glasses the view overwhelmed me. (read more)