Watch This: NYS Senator Diane Savino on Marriage Equality Bill

Hello. Watch this:

Teaching Update

Question: Do you like this blog but wish there were professional boundaries between us? Well, starting late January, I'm teaching two (TWO!) multi-week workshops. Check it out:

1) If you live in the area of Fairfield County, CT, I'm teaching at the Westport Writers Workshop (in Westport, CT) for eight Mondays, starting January 25th. This is a class for all levels, and we had a lot of fun and progress this past session. Go here to sign up.  (Note: This is a small group and some spots have already been taken, so don't be a ditherer!)

2) If you live elsewhere/anywhere, I'm teaching a ten-week online workshop for the UCLA Extension Writers' Program called Working With Scene in the Short Story. That one starts January 20th, and is an intermediate-level class.  Sign up here!

P.S. If you sign up for one of these classes, email me telling me so, and I will take off the awful animated .gif.  THIS IS YOUR CHALLENGE.

What's Going On In The World Of Facial Hair?

It's beard season, that's what!  I trimmed the hell out of it last night -- it was quite a bit bushier and scarier.  I looked not unlike the old man in "Home Alone."  The one who shows Macaulay Culkin how you really murder a guy with a shovel.  Don't worry -- I'm going to grow it back to a scary length.  I was just pacing myself so it'd be that way in time for Thanksgiving.  My mother, you see, is quite vocal in her dislike of beards on her only son.  The squeaky wheel gets the grease, lady!

Note: I had to take off my glasses for this shot because the lamps in the office were making huge squares across the lenses.  But also because I wanted to seduce you with my wrinkly, baggy eyes.  (In case my wrinkly, baggy shirt wasn't doing the trick.)

Submission

I had a lot of questions last week in workshop about the submissions process.  It's tough to talk about submissions in the last five minutes of a class, so I put together a little primer and emailed it to everyone. Now I'm reprinting it here.  I'm not the world's authority on literary submissions; I'm just handing over some of my experience.  I think even if you're not a writer -- if you're an actor, business professional, cook, musician, or drummer -- you might be surprised to find some of this sounding strangely familiar.  After all, when are we not submitting some piece of ourselves to someone's judgment?

Recovered Files: Extreme Makeover: the Follow-Up Show

Look what I found this morning: A comedy…thing…I wrote five years ago!  I'm posting it here because that's what blogs are for: Righting wrongs.  By the way, it helps to know that in 2004, when this piece was written, "Extreme Makeover" was not the show where they tearfully build ridiculously large houses with unforeseen tax implications.  Back then, it was a simpler show, dedicated to telling women what was wrong with them and then cutting those things off.  Enjoy!

Ask Genie Robert Blake

"Ask Genie Robert Blake anything, and he will REVEAL ALL! Except for why he went out to the parking lot that night. Off-limits!"

Zombie Apocalypse Fixes Everything

I was having a conversation with my wife this morning.  We were both full of worry and disgust over the yesterday's election losses -- NJ and VA; the passing of Proposition 1 in ME.  The media is already full of "Is this a referendum on Obama?" headlines and graphics, which are just a classy-ish way of saying, "This is the Obama backlash (we've been waiting for)!"

Anyway: So my wife and I were having this conversation, feeling just miserable about our country.  Everything's locked up with special interests and with whichever political movement's bumper sticker slogan is catchier than the others.  We have a Democratic majority in Congress, and we still can't get change to happen.  And that's when I thought: Boy, wouldn't it be great just to wipe all this clean?  The thought, I will tell you, kind of terrified me.  I'm not a kill 'em all kind of guy.  Is this what I've let myself be driven to?