Blog.

Into my twenties, when I read for pleasure, I most often read fiction. And when I was pursuing my BA in creative writing, I focused on short stories and poems. So, I’m surprised to find myself, at 54, a dedicated reader of nonfiction, almost to the exclusion of anything else. I can’t remember the last time I read a serious novel.

I read for ideas and information, and I write to convey them. When I want to confront concrete reality, I prefer the picture to the thousand words.

“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”

—George Orwell

I also write to discover what I think and examine it critically. You’d be surprised at the number of unexamined and unhelpful prejudices, and here I use the word in its original, broader sense of ‘prejudgment’ and not specifically in reference to race, and assumptions we have floating around in our heads and shaping our daily lives. Confronting them can be very healthy.

So here I offer you my thoughts and tentative conclusions on various topics that have piqued my interest, as they stand today. Where they will stand tomorrow, I don’t know. I’m changing, and new information may force me to reconsider. I reserve the right to change my mind.