When I was going to school I had a teacher, a realist, by all accounts, who once made the sarcastic quip when the focus of the class suddenly turned to musicals: “Hey, look: someone’s singing, and nobody called the police.” It was funny to those of us in the room. And it was understandable: not…

For the record, the phrase “killing your darlings” means something different in creative writing circles. But just for today: can we talk about death in fiction? As I am (apparently) prone to do, I was once listening in on a conversation between customers in the bookstore where I work. They got on the subject of…

Several years ago, I caught myself getting wrapped up in, of all things, a sitcom from the early 2010s. Not one to quickly get involved in a new show—particularly a sitcom, particularly post-millennium—you can imagine my surprise when my immediate attention kept drifting from my spaghetti prepping to the TV screen. It was something my…