The Poacher's Son in Writer's Digest

I just received the February issue of Writers Digest, and there's a profile on me in the Breaking In column titled "Debut Author Spotlight." It basically tells the tale of how I started writing and found my agent. I'm flattered to be included, and editor Chuck Sambuchino did a great job compacting a thousand words into a hundred plus.

When I was a young aspiring writer, working at Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, I pored over these sorts of how-to articles in the hope that I would discover a cantrip that would—poof!—magically make me a best-selling author. I have subsequently learned that success is mostly a matter of hard work, persistence, and luck. Then again, I have also come to believe that in life one tends to make one's own luck (by taking risks and being open to new people), so maybe we really are the masters of our fate and the captains of our souls.

The Writer's Digest feature isn't online yet, but if they upload it at some point, I'll post a link.

Sherlock Who?

I haven't seen Sherlock Holmes, director Guy Ritchie's big-screen "reimagination" of literature's most famous detective and, frankly, I have had no interest in seeing it. I was so appalled by the early trailers—the movie looked like it should have been titled Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Calabash Pipes—that I planned on boycotting the enterprise, despite my admiration for Robert Downey, Jr., whom Ritchie recruited to play Holmes, and Jude Law, who I thought was terrific in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Don't we have enough cinematic action heroes without turning Arthur Conan Doyle's "calculating machine" into a late Victorian James Bond?

That said, Matt Yglesias reminds us that Holmes could be a physically imposing dude when he chose to throw down (to use a term Guy Ritchie would approve):


Some people feel that this action-oriented version of Holmes is untrue to the original. I think this is wrong...The print Holmes is clearly described as an expert singlestick fighter and accomplished barenuckle boxer. He gets into fisticuffs and always wins...But bringing more emphasis to this kind of thing is exactly what a screen adaptation of a well-known print character should be for—elements of the character that are de-emphasized by the print medium are rightly brought into sharper focus for a movie.

So far, the critics have been all over the map on this flick. I'm not going to review a film I haven't seen, but if I do make it to the multiplex to see Holmes eventually, I'll certainly throw in my two shillings.

Books Under My Christmas Tree

Every Christmas people give me books—sometimes many books, sometimes not so many. This year, through some fluke of miscommunication, I received only three: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, stories by Wells Tower; George Magoon and the Down East Game War: History, Folklore, and the Law by Edward D. Ives; and Talking about Detective Fiction by P.D. James. Kind of an odd assortment, but somehow representative of my interests and tastes at the moment. It's a little disconcerting to see your personality distilled down to a few books that way.

Viva, Nuevo Laredo

Having noted that the last bookstore in Laredo, Texas, will soon be closing, leaving Laredo the largest city in the U.S. without a brick-and-mortar book shop, I was pleased to stumble across this post from a reader of Andrew Sullivan's blog:

I live very near Laredo and it is no more appropriate to talk about book stores in Laredo without mentioning Nuevo Laredo than it would be to talk about Brooklyn and fail to mention Queens. They are right on top of each other and most Laredoans routinely cross the border for groceries, tools and, yes, books.

Crossing the U.S. border isn't the same free and easy process it once was, but still this clarification comes as heartening news. I bet Jeff Bezos, of Amazon.com, is already salivating at all the money he will make selling books and e-books to Laredoans once B.Dalton vamooses, though.