Ronald Yates 
At least once every year I find it useful to take a look at the late Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing. It is sage advice from a master. Every writer should read these rules and remember them. I’m doing my part by posting them here for your edification and …
Forty-eight years ago, I was on a U.S. Navy ship headed to the Philippines. It was May 1, and a couple of days before, I was evacuated from a place called Saigon (known today as Ho Chi Minh City) as it fell to Communist North Vietnamese troops. April 29, 1975, …
At the request of a faithful follower, today I am re-posting a column that appeared a while back in The Economist, one of the U.K.’s most prestigious magazines. Written by an unnamed foreign correspondent, it takes a sardonic and self-effacing view of foreign correspondents by suggesting that Harry Flashman, Victorian …
Periodically, I like to post about the art and craft of writing. Today I am posting the third of a three-part series on the topic that I did a while back. Here is Part Three: During the past few years, I have done several interviews with bloggers and spoken to …
Periodically, I like to post about the art and craft of writing. Today I am posting the second of a three-part series on the topic that I did a while back. Here is Part Two: During the past few years, I have done several interviews with bloggers and spoken to …
Periodically, I like to post about the art and craft of writing. Today I am posting the first of a three-part series on the topic that I did a while back. Here is Part One: During the past few years, I have done several interviews with bloggers and spoken to …
Like a lot of people, I wasn’t aware that there is a week devoted to banned books. There is. It’s this week, and it began Sunday and runs to September 24. Below I have compiled a list of the most commonly banned books according to the American Library Association. These …
I belong to a lively online Historical Novels discussion group in which authors engage in lots of discussions ranging from how one researches historical novels to selecting book titles. Recently someone started a discussion about whether or not we authors should be politically correct when writing historical fiction. The result was …
What would happen if the Political Correctness and Cancel Culture Fanatics decided to rewrite a few 19th Century fairy tales to make them more suitable to the pliable minds of children in the politically correct 21st Century? I shudder to think. But someone already has thought about this, and I …
Vladimir Lenin, the man who in 1917 created the now-defunct one-party socialist state called The Soviet Union, understood how critical education is in molding pliant minds. “Give me four years to teach the children, and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted,” he once said. Lenin knew that …