(Today I am pleased to re-run a story that recently appeared in the Asia Times about my former Chicago Tribune colleague Don Kirk. In the piece, Don talks about the changes he has witnessed during 50 years of covering a tumultuous, changing Asia. Don was one of the most persistent, aggressive, …
Where in the world is Billy Battles? As Book Three of the Finding Billy Battles trilogy begins we know where Billy is. He is in Chicago with his wife, the former Baroness Katharina von Schreiber living a sedate and comfortable life after years of adventure and tragedy. That changes with …
Today it’s a great pleasure to welcome Marcha Fox to ForeignCorrespondent. Marcha is a multi-talented author of science fiction novels—a genre for which she is uniquely qualified given her more than 20 years’ experience at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas where she was a technical writer, engineer, and …
[One of the great things about being a foreign correspondent is the opportunity one has of staying in classic hotels around the world. During my career, I stayed in my share of them–some more classic than others. In some cases, I lived in a hotel for months at a time …
One of the saddest events of the past ten years or so has been the inexorable demise of the brick and mortar bookstore. Fully half of the bookstores in the United States have vanished in the past ten years. Gone are places like Borders, Crown Books, Waldenbooks, B. Dalton, Kroch’s …
Al Franken, Harvey Weinstein, Roy Moore, Kevin Spacey, John Conyers, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Bill O’Reilly, and (gasp!) Garrison Keillor. What do all of these men have in common? Yes, we know they are accused gropers, sexual predators, harassers, etc. Well, maybe not so much Garrison Keillor of Lake Wobegon. …
When I was teaching journalism at the University of Illinois, I often gave my students a test designed to see just how observant they were. Observation, as I have pointed out in previous posts, is a critical skill writers need to master IF they are to provide clear and vivid …
[This is a re-post of a post I published a while back. I am posting it again because of questions I have received asking me to discuss how authors can use the skills practiced in professional journalism] How can the methods of reporting and writing practiced by professional journalists possibly …
[This is a re-post of a post I published a while back. I am posting it again because of questions I have received asking me to discuss how authors can use the skills practiced in professional journalism] Without a doubt, one of the best places to learn the craft of …
Within hours of the attack in New York in which an Islamic terrorist used a truck to mow down and kill eight people on a bicycle path, public officials were out in front of the cameras telling the public to go on with their lives because: “we can’t let the …