Charles Dodd White

Just in from @ala-booklist.bsky.social for Babcock's A SMALL DISTURBANCE ON THE FAR HORIZON: "Babcock expertly
describes rural small-town life in the 1950s: the claustrophobic puritanism and the values that are
foisted upon the residents." regal-house-publishing.mybigcommerce.com/a-small-dist...

It actually reflects strength of character when you're able to admire great art created by deeply flawed people.

Donna Baier Stein As a child, Donna Baier Stein wrote her first story, “Melissa in Book World” about a little girl who lived underwater in a world of books. As an adult, she’s happy to have had that foreshadowing co…

We are delighted to welcome Donna Baier Stein to our RHP family and to bring you her novel COURTESAN TO THE BUDDHA as part of our stellar Summer 27 Frontlist Season! Welcome Donna! regalhousepublishing.com/donna-baier-...

You read nonfiction to learn the facts. You read fiction to learn the truth.

MATTERHORN is the best novel written about the Vietnam war.

The Turning Point Vietnam War series on Netflix is a stunning piece of documentary filmmaking.

Ok, ok. We've got an American pope. That's fine. The real question is when are we getting an Appalachian pope.

Writing negative book reviews is actually a good trend. It means people are finally unafraid of declaring an aesthetic position.

Have we reached the point of post-cool writers? I hope so. Keeping up with cool writers was so exhausting.

If you want to learn how to write dialogue, you need to sit down and watch an August Wilson play. That man flat nailed the music of everyday speech.

Been looking forward to it.

Springsteen is a better songwriter than Dylan.

Don't let anyone fool you. Action scenes are by far the hardest writing you'll ever do in a novel.

Walter Tevis is a hell of an underrated writer. THE HUSTLER is a master class in how descriptive writing can create tension.

There's nothing more boring than someone who hasn't published fiction bemoaning what's wrong with contemporary "mfa" fiction. Same tired arguments about quiet lives, Brooklyn etc.

A good novelist should be able to touch the nerve of the reader's conscience.

A lot of people defending AI, claiming it's a tool. It's not. Writing is a series of important decisions. When you hand over the pain writing demands, you outsource the real labor of the heart. You give away yourself. And that will be a hell of a hard thing to get back.

Why do people want characters in novels to be relatable? That's the last thing that concerns me in a serious book. I want to wrestle with the tangles and flaws of someone who makes me see the world through a completely different pair of eyes. That's the astonishment that makes me turn the page.

Is anyone else on here struggling to get any kind of engagement? Feels a bit empty despite the number of followers I seem to be collecting. What gives?

Is anyone seeing this?

Keep gaining followers but no likes on my posts. This algorithm is bananas.

The best way to "resist" any ideologue is by thinking deeply about things, being willing to fearlessly consider an unpopular opinion, and seeking out people and ideas that enlarge your sense of what it means to have a complicated view of the truth.

Young men need to pursue a rich inner life through reading and a developed regard for art, history, philosophy, and culture. Desperation takes hold of men who have no means of understanding their world.

Simon Crichley's new book Mysticism is such an exciting look at guarding what it means to be fully human. Hell of a writer that can present philosophy like a page-turning thriller.

The title story is INSANE.

I'll be kicking off my Substack about leading a philosophically practical life at the end of this week. Would love it if some of you all checked in to give it a look. I plan to do one essay a week for the foreseeable future.

Much of the great fiction published right now is being missed by the reading public because it is labeled as regional.

Don't kid yourself. Normalizing AI in art and writing isn't a matter of process or efficiency. It's a direct attack on epistemology. It's a way of undermining human culture at its foundation. It's a way to make you see and feel less.