Launching the Twitter Project

I’ve always been a reluctant joiner. Perhaps because of my existential roots. I can’t warm up to Facebook. Technology moves too fast for me to keep up with. I still use my cell phone mostly like a phone, which I guess is quaint and old-fashioned. So it is with great personal fanfare (which means two glasses of Merlot) that I can claim I am now the proud owner of a Twitter account.

Through some magical mystery I was able to add a Twitter follow button to my left sidebar (kudos to the Word Press designers for making it easy for even a Luddite like me to figure it out). Feel free to click on it if you would like to join me on this voyage. I have no idea whether I will Tweet any more (or less) than I blog, what I will Tweet about, or why, but at least I’m up for giving it a go.

Welcome Baseball 2012

Major League Baseball has begun. As I write this, the Rays have swept the Yanks in their first three games at the Trop to open the 2012 season. Good for Tampa Bay, not so good for my dad (sorry Pop!).

Baseball has enjoyed a long love affair with writers and filmmakers. Here’s a list of a few of my favorite baseball stories either published or brought to the big screen (or both), in no particular order:

• Brittle Innings (1994), novel by Michael Bishop, one of my favorite books–strange, unexpected, and wonderfully imaginative.
• Field of Dreams (1989), film starring Kevin Costner, sappy but fun, based on the novel Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella.
• Eight Men Out (1988), film based on the book by Eliot Asinof, possibly one of the best sports films ever, about the 1919 Chicago Whitesox accused of taking a dive in the World Series.
• The Bad News Bears (1976), hysterically funny film starring Walter Matthau and a tiny tot Tatum O’Neal (I never saw the 2005 remake).
• My pal Rick Wilber wrote a fantastic memoir about his dad–a former major leaguer–and what it was like growing up in the game. My Father’s Game is touching, real, poignant, and unforgettable.
• I know The Natural is on just about everyone’s favorites list, and some folks consider it the best baseball novel and film ever. Personally, I’ve never been able to warm all the way up to either of them, but I can see why others have. They’re worth checking out. The 1984 film stars Robert Redford, based on the 1952 novel by Bernard Malamud.
• Moneyball (2011), film starring Brad Pitt, based on the book by Michael Lewis, an instant movie classic in my opinion. The story of Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A’s, and the incredible, magical year he had taking his underpaid, under-appreciated ball club all the way to the playoffs, and challenging the Major League record for most consecutive wins along the way.

Zen thought(s) for April:

Here are three baseball haiku by my friend Michael Ketchek, an incredibly talented poet, from his chapbook Sports Haiku. 

before the game
the uniforms and hopes
so bright

desperate rookie
either hit the curve ball
or back to the coal mines

bright Florida sun
the rookie just lumbering up
on green outfield grass

Love the French

I’m happy to report that the French publisher Telemaque has republished my first novel A Small and Remarkable Life. This is the second French printing, and it appears under their Gallimard Folio SF imprint as a mass market paperback (the first was a trade paperback). You can’t tell from the picture, but they’ve retitled the novel La vie secrete et remarquable de Tink Puddah, which I think translates to “The secret and remarkable life of Tink Puddah.” They also came up with a really cool cover. That’s Tink in the foreground, nice and appropriately blue, standing in front of his cabin.

I now join such masters under the Folio imprint as Philip K. Dick, Robert Silverberg, Jack Vance, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and a whole bunch others, including my Canadian friend Robert Charles Wilson. I can also officially say that the French love me as much as I love them. I’ve had more success with the book in France than I have in North America. A very special merci beaucoup! to my pal Rob Sawyer, who originally published the novel under his Robert J. Sawyer Books line in 2006. It’s been a great ride!

The Freedom to Write

Here in the West, we sometimes take for granted the freedoms we have. Even those of us who write for a living, in one form or another, tend to forget that we live in a part of the world where we can write what we want, express our thoughts and beliefs, and criticize our government without having to risk our lives. The New York Times published an article today (Sunday, Feb. 26) that reminded me of just how lucky we are.

From Virginia Suburb, a Dissident Chinese Writer Continues His Mission, by Edward Wong, tells the story of Chinese author Yu Jie, who was imprisoned and tortured in his own country for no other reason than writing critical opinions of it. He decided to flee to America with his family to save his own life and protect his wife and young son. This is not a new story to China or many other parts of the world, but in the West it would be a violation of everything we hold sacred. How often have I been critical of my government? How often have I spoken and written of it? There may be some things that anger me about my homeland, but the freedom to say so is one of the most precious gifts we have.

About Yu Jie:

• In 1998, Yu published his first book, Fire and Ice, (not easily found) for which he was honored with the Top Ten Good Books literary award by the Xishu reading club.
• In 2002, Yu was awarded the Certificate of Achievement from Chan’s Foundation of Journalism and Culture, New York.
• In 2006, Yu published a novel, Vanilla Mountain, (again, hard to come by) for which he was awarded the Tang Qing Christian Literature Award of Hong Kong.

Zen Thought for February:

Albert Einstein said, “A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest…a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.”  Remember that we are all part of the universe, part of the whole. Our problems may seem very real and overwhelming at times, but they are just problems, after all. They are not us. You and I, as my Zen instructor likes to say, are perfect just the way we are.

Fine Friends, Fine Writers

Due to the encouragement of my friends in high places (the high places of my heart) I have begun to work on two short story collections that I’m going to self-publish as ebooks. Recently I’ve had some fun digging through old documents and trying to locate electronic copies of work I originally wrote back in the 1990s. Some of the stuff was old enough to be on 5 1/4 inch floppies. Remember those? I found a few other pieces on 3 1/2 inch disks and an old Gateway computer of mine, which was a nice surprise (sometimes it pays to be a packrat). I’ve got a bunch of stories ready to go and have started to put things together. More about this later.

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged, and I’ve been reading a lot, so I won’t talk about everything that has passed under my nose, but I would like to mention at least three books since I know the authors, and I absolutely love reading books by people I know.

I’ve joined a writers group down here in St. Pete, and one of the girls in the group, Elisabeth Rose, is a mighty fine literary talent. Her first novel Body Sharers was published by Rutgers Press Fiction in 1993. It’s a beautifully written novel, often shocking, always fascinating, populated by very strange people and, much to my surprise, a ghost dog. (Yes, Lisa, this does in fact qualify you as a fantasy writer!)

Not only is Arlene Webb someone I know, she’s a former student. I love to see my creative writing students succeed. Makes me feel warm all over. (Or maybe that’s just the Florida sunshine that I still haven’t quite gotten used to.) Regardless, check out her novel Ashes. As a student, she always had a wild mind. I’m happy to say this novel reflects her wonderfully crazy imagination.

Robert J. Sawyer certainly doesn’t need any props from me, but how can I resist? Not only is he my pal, he’s the most kick-arse science fiction author writing today. The third novel in his WWW trilogy, WWW: Wonder, was released last year. It’s a great finish to the series. Read all three: Wake, Watch, Wonder. And visit his way-cool website, sfwriter.com. There is an incredible amount of interesting content out there, especially for new writers. Back when I was teaching regularly, I’d always make sure my students knew about Rob’s site. He has essential how-to-write articles and much good advice for beginning writers.

The Beginning of a New Millennium

I have not written a film review in quite some time, but how could I resist The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? I know that not everyone is a big fan of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. I happened to love all three books. I’ve seen the three original Swedish films, which I have to say aren’t particularly awesome. The production quality of David Fincher’s version is much better (as one would expect), the music is terrific, and the acting is superior. Fincher introduces a bit more of a noir aspect to the movie that I quite like, and it does not have the same unfortunate “made for TV” feeling that the Swedish version has. The focus of the new film is Lisbeth Salander (played wonderfully by Rooney Mara). Lisbeth is no longer the sidekick, but the main attraction. Whether you see this as good or bad may rest on whether you’re a purist when it comes to adaptations, and whether you agree with Fincher’s instincts that this is a story about a new kind of heroine, a techno-existential-anarchist who is completely incapable of socialization but has no qualms about making societal judgments of her own. In my opinion it would have been awfully difficult to stick too closely to Larsson’s complicated book. Niels Oplev tried really hard to do this in the Swedish version, and it didn’t work out so well, to the point where he made a movie (three of them, really) that only the people familiar with the original work could appreciate.

That’s not to say that Fincher’s film doesn’t have its confusing bits. It does. And some of the scenes with Mikael Blomkvist (played by Daniel Craig) are surprisingly flat. Maybe Craig is too quietly macho and self-confident to play the character the way Larsson wrote him. Craig’s Blomkvist is a bit one-dimensional. And I’m not sure that saying Fincher’s version is better than Oplev’s is a ringing endorsement. However, if you’ve read the series you’ll enjoy seeing the American adaptation of this one, and if you haven’t you’ll still get a sense of Larsson’s story. That might be as good as it gets for a book of this kind being made into a film. The novel is a quintessential reading experience, meant for readers, written by an author who reached a level of excellence and distinctiveness not many can match over the course of a writing career. My advice is to read the book and accept the movie for what it is: Hollywood’s attempt to make everyone happy, handcuffed by the requirements of the entertainment industry, with source material that’s hard to present in a coherent fashion in a reasonable amount of time (two hours, 38 minutes in this case), and the need to make big money on a big budget picture. Not easy when you roll it all together. Well done, considering. Still, the book is better.

For those interested in the film credits: Based on the novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson; directed by David Fincher; screenplay by Steven Zaillian; released by Columbia Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. Principal cast: Rooney Mara (Lisbeth Salander), Daniel Craig (Mikael Blomkvist), Christopher Plummer (Henrik Vanger), Stellan Skarsgard (Martin Vanger), Steven Berkoff (Frode), Robin Wright (Erika Berger).

Celebrating Two Sentences in the New Yorker

I am delighted to report that Thomas Mallon, A Critic at Large for The New Yorker, dropped my name in his November 21, 2011, column. In his piece titled “Never Happened: Fictions of Alternate History,” he discusses several works and authors along with some of the merits and demerits of the alternate history genre.

Here’s the quote about my story in its entirety:

“Over the past view decades, the assassination of John F. Kennedy has become one of alt-history’s most fertile furrows. An anthology, “Alternate Kennedys,” appeared twenty years ago, and included a story called “The Winterberry” (1992), by Nicholas A. DiChario. It featured a brain-damaged, childlike John F. Kennedy, who, having survived an assassination attempt, has been locked away for decades in what seems to be Hyannis Port.”

He goes on to talk a bit more about JFK alternate history stories in particular, mentioning both Don DeLillo’s Libra and Stephen King’s new novel 11/22/63 (which I’m currently reading). For me, this is a gigantic thrill. I’ve admired the magazine for years, and to see my name in it made for a very nice Thanksgiving. Thank you, Mr. Mallon. I’m currently trying to figure out how to frame it.

My name notwithstanding, it’s a great article and offers an interesting and informative overview of a few of the seminal works in the field. Highly recommended!