Although I don’t make New Year’s resolutions myself, I’m aware that many people do. Okay, for all you readers out there who are resolution-makers, I have a suggestion for you: How about resolving to broaden the scope of your reading in 2017?

So there I was, doing something very familiar: reading one of my picturebooks to a classroom full of first-graders enrolled in an after-school program. It being close to Christmas, the book I was reading was suitably seasonal—one I had written, of course, although out of another publishing house, not Roundtable. When I had finished reading the book, as usual I asked if there were any questions, and as usual the kids who raised their hands mostly offered comments rather than questions. (They have a very liberal concept of “Q&A,”) One of the first must have been a direct descendant of...

Still making out your Christmas shopping list? Having trouble deciding what to get some of the people you need to buy presents for? Not surprisingly, as a writer, I advocate giving books. With books, there’s no worrying about guessing wrong at size or, worse, insulting someone by buying a Large for a person who wears a Medium. There’s also no worrying about color choice or style. Yes, it’s true that few folks are omnivorous readers, who read everything. Some people read mostly mysteries, while others prefer romances, and others prefer uncategorizable novels—non-genre. Then there are those—and I’m one—who prefer nonfiction...

I’ve been good this year, so I know I’m not on your “naughty” list. We don’t have a chimney, but you can do as our UPS driver does and leave my presents at the front door, then knock loudly so I know to check and see what’s waiting for me.

A writer I admire and enjoy reading the books of, Mary Roach, wrote in her book MY PLANET, “You get crumbs in the bed and steal my blankets. I still want the divorce.” It was a throwaway line in an otherwise-oriented chapter.

Thanksgiving 2016…well, “as near as makes no never mind,” to use an old colloquial expression that, while it isn’t grammatically correct, is very expressive. Thanksgiving 2016. It’s been a turbulent year, but if I don’t get into politics here—and I won’t, I promise—that excludes most of the turbulence and most of what everyone is still talking about weeks after the election.

There is a rooster inside my head that goes off like the most reliable alarm clock at 5 every morning if I’m not already awake—which most often I am. At times in my past I tried staying up later in hopes that would cause me to sleep later. It didn’t. It only left me resembling a zombie throughout a very sleep-deprived day, after my usual anonymous rooster awakened me at 5. So I resigned myself to getting up early (and going to bed commensurately early). As a result, I have a long workday (not a bad thing for a writer)...

LAKELAND — Ferguson Addison first became aware of Frances Langford through a family connection. Addison, who grew up in Southwest Florida, had a cousin who played piano in the 1920s at WDAE, a radio station in Tampa. Langford, a Lakeland resident, appeared on a weekly show on WDAE, singing in front of a band.

The attendance was very nearly SRO at last Saturday’s third big event of the organization 4 Authors by Authors (read the “4” as “For”). In a jam-packed large room at Keiser University in West Palm Beach, writers and would-be writers sat and absorbed wisdom and inspiration from five speakers: author Lisa McCourt (speaking on behalf of “The Book Couple”), Suzanne Mulvehill, David Pollock, Mark Spivak, and Tia Crystal. There were also introductory remarks by founder Janet Lifshin and managing director Penny Polokoff, as well as brief presentations by the vendors who were there to sell their wares (mainly books) or...

It comes just once a year—and I’m not talking about Christmas, or the just-passed Halloween. The subject today is NaNoWriMo, and as it just started yesterday, November 1st, you’re really not too late to jump in and catch up.