Author Archives: John Walters

On Rereading Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr.

James Tiptree Jr. has been one of my favorite short story writers for over forty years.  Lest anyone get confused when I refer to the author as “she” or “her,” James Tiptree Jr. was a pseudonym for Alice Sheldon, a … Continue reading

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How the Film “All Is Lost” Reminds Me of My Writing Career

When I first began this website/blog I wrote a few essays on my favorite films, but early on I decided to steer clear of film reviews and focus on book reviews, memoirs, and thoughts on writing.  In writing about “All … Continue reading

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Book Review: Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris

The five mentioned in the title are the five top directors working in Hollywood at the start of World War II:  Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston, George Stevens, and William Wyler.  When the war started, each of them cut … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

I had forgotten the joys of perusing books in libraries, but my present inability to afford to buy books has brought it back.  I’ve found a number of quality books I would have never thought of reading, among them this … Continue reading

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Love the One You’re With

I’m a writer.  I’ve made that statement in plenty of blog posts and told lots of people whenever the subject comes up of what I do.  A writer writes.  That’s a truism, of course, but plenty of writers have had … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson

This is one of those rarities among books:  fascinating, well-written, and just the right length for what it sets out to do.  It tells the story of the creation of computers, programming, the transistor, the microchip, video games, the Internet, … Continue reading

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Failure and Success

Recently I was writing an article about people who experienced adversity in life and went on to become famous and successful.  I’m sure you would recognize all of the names.  A number of things struck me as I pondered the … Continue reading

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Book Review: Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates

All of the stories in this book are dark; some are deep; only a few are lovely.  At first I thought the title was an original fabrication referring to the stories themselves, but in fact it is culled from the … Continue reading

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Roadside Stands

While I was preparing to upload some short stories to Kindle for publication, somewhat ruing the fact that I could afford only the most rudimentary covers for them – a few bucks for an illustration from Dreamstime, simple formatting and … Continue reading

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Book Review: Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris

This is the second volume of a trilogy on the life of Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most dynamic of U.S. presidents.  The first volume, “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” deals with his youth, education, early years as a rancher … Continue reading

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