My ode to the Miami Open - and the beauty of tennis - appears in the new issue of The Miami Native: https://www.miaminativemag.com/articles/the-subtropical-open
The other day I found comments people had written about my books on a book review website. And I was struck by how often the comments with the worst syntax complained about the writing.
Wednesday I finished a long essay I’d been working on for a while, and immediately went for a bike ride, with a great feeling of satisfaction.
The essay was still a rough draft. In the old days, that meant it was written in longhand on pages torn from a yellow legal pad. After days of tweaking, I would type it up and then send it out.
Now, my rough draft is always typed, of course, but single-spaced. When it’s as good as I can make it, I click on the tool bar and make it double-spaced. It's the final, cosmetic act that makes it ready to go out into the world.
I have a new essay online at The American Scholar: https://theamericanscholar.org/the-importance-of-being-different/
It's about my career, travel writing, unsung places, and American publishing.
Oprah appeared on CBS Morning a short while ago with her new book club pick: a memoir (another) about addiction and recovery. And once again I lamented my misspent youth: reading books, living abroad, learning languages, witnessing history. In my defense, I couldn’t have known back then what would make for a marketable memoir in the 21st century.
Last February, when I learned that the Key West Literary Seminar for 2024 was going to have Florida as its theme, I immediately made plans to attend. Two months earlier the editor of The American Scholar had accepted my essay “Florida Man,” which was a defense of the state (for the most part) against the people outside it who continue to make fun of it and the writers inside it who insist on sensationalizing it. Some of the latter were listed as speakers.
I was concerned when the essay didn’t run in the summer issue. Were a massive hurricane to hit South Florida, it would render the essay meaningless. It didn’t make the autumn issue either, still leaving open the possibility of a disqualifying disaster. Finally, it appeared in the winter issue, right after Thanksgiving; the full essay went online at the end of December. I posted about it on social media, and was interviewed about it by Scott Simon on his podcast Open Book.
Last week I walked into the Key West Literary Seminar wondering if people would recognize my name, which was printed clearly on my nametag. No one did. Similarly, no one mentioned the essay in any of the sessions. My Florida Man was the Invisible Man.