Got a punchline for that? Anyone? The family gathers this weekend for another splendid occasion, the marriage of niece Lizzie to her inten...

Confession: I'm a "place" snob. At least where book and movie locations are concerned. I don't care how fine the reviews o...

Finally! The humidity has cleared out for a few days, so I've ventured outside again. Yesterday was glorious in Central Park - a bright ...

Summer is my least favorite season. It's hot. It's humid. It sucks energy and creativity right out of me. The myth of long, glorious...

I usually reserve posts about my GrandBoy for my GrandMary blog but can't resist spreading the joy to my Shorty readers, as well. This ...

Fancy your business letters smack of Hemingway? Your blogs have an air of Margaret Mitchell? The short story you wrote in high school sound ...

Of all the famous literary characters floating around out there, I've always most identified with Jean Louise "Scout" Finch in...

A pretty great way to spend a 4th of July weekend, actually. The Brennan Clan gathered in Guilford/Madison, Connecticut, for nephew/cousin...

American history and mythology are full of stories about deadly Wild West poker games, where one slight facial tic can cause a player's ...

It's Fathers Day and time to celebrate and remember all the good daddies out there. Two of the best come to my mind today. Remembering...

Yeah, yeah. Another post about books. Get over it. Anyway, a friend put out a plea on Facebook for "a fantastic, can't put down, gr...

After Catherine Zeta Jones' abominable performance of "Send in the Clowns" on the Tony Awards broadcast, I made the painful de...

Don't you just love getting away for a couple of days and catching up with old friends? Thanks to Netflix, I get to hang out with a whol...

OK, so I've already told y'all about my plans to stick to Southern authors for my summer audiobook list, but who will give me ideas...

Friend Richard is working on a new book about growing up Southern. We Southerners take our idiosyncracies for granted, I believe, and are ta...

New York City is full of news. All the time. And it's not all Fashion Week, Met Openings, Broadway Premieres, or Times Square bomb threa...

I've decided to spend the summer with Southern authors. From now to Labor Day, only voices from the South will be downloaded onto my iPo...

For Elegant Scribbles , bid'ness is booming in 2010. That's the little handwriting/addressing service I started in December 2008. No...

I'm 59 years old today. There, I said it. Actually, I readily admit to it, because I believe that those of us born in 1951 were born at ...

Straw = Spirit Airline's charge for overhead bin carry-on space. Camel's back = paying customers. Is this it? And the report that R...