Does it matter if the history we know was fabricated? Pfft! Of course it matters. The past teaches us not to repeat mistakes! The past teaches us who we are, etc.! But, really—once history is old enough to become the dust we walk on, what difference does it make in our daily lives if the…
Story Archive
Dancing in Odessa (1941)
“They crumpled and fell into the sea,” my grandfather once told my mother. *** They didn’t have faces until 2006, when I heard Jewish-Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky read from his award-winning book Dancing in Odessa, at the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference. “my family, the people of Odessa, women with huge breasts, old men naive and…
Looking for Vlad (15th Century CE)
“Did you know,” my brother asked me one day, “that an impaled person could live for days up there, on a stake? If the executioner went along the spine, sparing all the vital organs…” “Wow… so, there were people who were experts at that?” I said. “Imagine the practice you needed to become an expert…
Our Borders: When History First Changed (1990)
I stood in front of the classroom fidgeting with the ends of my uniform’s cord belt. “I don’t want to learn about Lenin, Comrade,” I told my seventh-grade History teacher.
Argo (2012 CE) and Kadesh (1275 BCE)
…and then, with the fury of Baal in his blood and the glory of Amun upon him, Rameses II went out alone on the battlefield in his two-horse chariot. He alone cut down Hittites by the thousands. He slashed limbs and heads. He hurled dead bodies into the waters of the Orontes until the river…
The Last Plantagenet King (1485 CE)
Richard III of the House of York was the last English king to die in battle—on August 22, 1485, at Bosworth Field. Now that the archeologists at University of Leicester have found his twisted remains under a parking lot, there is much revisiting of his story. Recent forensic tests revealed that the king had not been the…
Four Reasons to Join a Writing Practice Group
First posted on Bob and Jack’s Writing Blog on August 2, 2012 (Robert J. Ray and Jack Remick‘s writing blog). This post refers to the writing practice that starts every Tuesday and Friday at 2:30 p.m. at Louisa’s Café and Bakery in Seattle. We write for 45 minutes with a timer, then break into groups of four and…
Screenwriting Techniques and the Novel
First posted on Bob and Jack’s Writing Blog on January 26, 2012 (Robert J. Ray and Jack Remick‘s writing blog). In my previous post on Bob and Jack’s blog (see Guest Writers), I wrote about the early stages of my novel The Wedding Bell. This post is about my journey as an apprentice toward the…