PBS is currently running a new three-part documentary about Ernest Hemingway by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick which explores the famous author’s own image-making. In the documentary, we see Hemingway as a “man’s man–” a battle-hardened war veteran, a big game hunter, a deep-sea fisherman, a brawler, a boozer, a …
I posted the following commentary in 2018 when the Chicago Tribune moved out of Tribune Tower and into the One Prudential Plaza building a few blocks south of the Chicago River. I wasn’t there for the move, but it was nevertheless dispiriting and disheartening for me because in that building …
My introduction to Hong Kong was via the 1960 film The World of Suzy Wong, starring William Holden and Nancy Kwan. The movie was based on the 1957 novel of the same name by British author Richard Mason. It is a classic East meets West story in which a British …
(NOTE: Tomorrow and Thursday I invite you to join me as I relive the last 24 frantic hours in Saigon as it fell to Communist North Vietnamese troops on April 29-30, 1975–an event I covered for the Chicago Tribune in 1975. I hope you will stop by) Forty-five years ago …
Two years ago Clare Hollingworth, one of the toughest, most determined, and inexhaustible war correspondents who ever lived passed away in her Hong Kong home. I posted on her passing at the time, but because she was such a unique and iconic journalist, I feel compelled to post my story …
Along with a few hundred other authors, I attended the 2019 Chanticleer International Book Awards Conference which took place April 26-28 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Washington. As with some 275 other authors from around the world, I was a semi-finalist in one of 16 divisions from which …
I’m sharing a little good news today. ‘The Lost Years of Billy Battles‘ has been named an “Official Selection” in the HISTORICAL FICTION category of the Fifth Annual New Apple Literary Awards. The Lost Years of Billy Battles is the final book in the award-winning Finding Billy Battles Trilogy. It was published …
Join me tomorrow for the 2nd annual San Diego Festival of Books where I, along with other authors will be signing books, talking about writing, and generally schmoozing with readers, (and one another). Most of all, browse the author booths in Authors’ Alley, attend the book and author sessions, visit …
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 …
[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 …