Sugar Water For My Dopamine-Depleted Brain, featuring George Saunders
In which I discuss using George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain as a temporary antidote to my possibly dropped dopamine levels.
Teaching
Life in a Time of Pandemic (April 16-17, 2020)
Thursday, April 16, 2020 I’ve turned a corner somehow, and lost my intrinsic motivation to take my morning walk — maybe because it was raining on a couple of days, maybe because I threw my back out a few days ago. Lately I wake and think, what if I just stay in bed? I’ve let … Read more
Life in the Time of Pandemic (March 13-20, 2020)
By Friday, March 13, all students had been advised to leave campus until March 31st — if possible. The end date feels arbitrary, will they all fly home and return two weeks later? I guess the truth is that nobody knows. The faculty receives a query from our department chair asking us to report if … Read more
Two Weeks Outside the Epicenter of America’s Coronavirus Crisis.
Inspired by the New Yorker article, “A Week in Seattle, The Epicenter of America’s Coronavirus Crisis.” I’m writing this on March 13, and already I’m forgetting the dates, having to reconstruct them: It was the second to last day of February, (Friday, Feb 28, 2020) when Paul and I flew from the airport in Jacksonville, … Read more
Pitch It To Me
In my last post, I was saying that two of the classes I’m teaching this term two are very similar to classes I took in screenwriting school. One — the topic of my last post, I enjoyed. The OTHER was pitching class. The room was small and bright. The number of students was less than … Read more
Something New / Script Analysis
This spring I’ll be taking a cross country trip in order to teach three classes at University of Florida. Two of the topics I’ll be teaching will be very similar to classes at USC that I feel were the most valuable to my writing career. One of them I enjoyed greatly. The other, I did … Read more