Three days ago the U.S. remembered the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. I was going through my files a couple of days later and ran across this story that I wrote in 1989 when I was the Chicago Tribune’s Tokyo Bureau Chief and Chief Asia Correspondent. …
The link below will take you to a podcast/radio interview I did a while back with C. P. Lesley of the New Books Network about writing historical fiction. Ms. Lesley is herself the author of six historical fiction novels set in 16th Century Russia during the reign of Ivan the …
Today is the 80th anniversary of Imperial Japan’s attack on America’s 7th Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I lived in Japan and covered that nation for 10 years as the Chicago Tribune’s Chief Far Eastern Correspondent and Tokyo Bureau Chief. Naturally, Pearl Harbor was never far from the cusp of …
In my continuing examination of the way people of the past predicted the future, here is yet another look at some interesting forecasts from long ago. My previous post on predictions from the past was posted earlier this week. Why am I blogging about this? Because, as an author of …
Predicting the future can be a daunting, if not a sometimes embarrassing occupation. I have already posted on this topic a few times because as a writer of historical fiction I think it adds something when characters look ahead and wonder what the world will be like in one hundred …
There is an anonymous quote about books and reading them that I recall from my English Literature class at the University of Kansas several centuries ago. It goes like this: “Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.” The meaning …
Once upon a time, America was a nation of laws. Thieves and thugs were punished when they were caught, arrested, and convicted. Those were the good ole days. Today, we live in a nation where smash and grab thieves are invading stores at will, cleaning them out, and walking away. …
I was getting ready to post today on the fully warranted Kyle Rittenhouse acquittal and then I read the column below by former Chicago Tribune colleague and columnist John Kass. John left the Tribune this past summer, the victim of “cancel culture” primarily because of a column he wrote that …
“Has America Ever Been as Divided as it is today?” That was the rhetorical question a television pundit recently asked during a discussion of the nation’s current hateful political climate. Frankly, the question surprised me. Then I looked at who asked it. She was a thirty-something talking head who had …
Today is Veterans Day. Given that only 7 percent of the people of this nation have ever put on a uniform, I wonder how many Americans know why Veterans Day is a national holiday. Yes, it means schools and most government offices are closed. But it means a lot more …