by Jim | Jul 29, 2023 | Blog
Thirty years ago, when I first came to Prague to ‘write and live in Europe,’ I made a serious error of judgement. I had access to a 50-year-old motorcycle, a Jawa two-cycle twin and decided to ride it over the Austrian Alps down into Italy to see a friend. In itself,...
by Jim | Jul 21, 2023 | Blog
Rafael Sabatini is no longer with us, having died in 1950, but he was an Italian-born British writer of romance and adventure novels. Raf is best known for his worldwide bestsellers: The Sea Hawk, Scaramouche, Captain Blood, and Bellarion the Fortunate. Several of his...
by Jim | Jul 21, 2023 | Blog
Jennifer Lawrence, George Clooney and the other actors out on strike in Hollywood are doing it for the underpaid. You may not be aware, but the average annual income for a Sag-Aftra member is approximately $40,000, which is 32% below the national average. That’s...
by Jim | Jul 21, 2023 | Blog
Before I turned to writing I was a landscape architect and my theory about truly learning the craft included visiting every site I could access that had been designed by a famous name. And I didn’t want their latest work, I craved the older works that might show me...
by Jim | Jul 3, 2023 | Blog
A placebo does nothing, but makes us think it does. It’s a human or medical intervention that changes the story we tell ourselves, and what are writers if not story-tellers? Done well, those stories are powerful and who’s to know? If they can save the blues (or the...
by Jim | Jun 28, 2023 | Blog
Several war memoirs I’ve read recently concern the desires of men who have long been in the trenches and I think about Ukraine and friends of mine who’ve been to war. Those dreams aren’t often directed at a steak dinner, hot shower, or even sex. The predominant...