While I am working on my novella, Only Regrets, I’m spending hours at my work table, too, and, these days, I am drawing on the monsters that play behind my eyelids. These odd creatures often express my frustration or dismay … Continue reading Cartoons with Fangs, Nails, or Nothing Much
Gerty and LaShana Gerty, social-distancing Gerty stops to smell the roses Gerty and the Goldfinch The Perfect Escape Continue reading Some of my “Gerty” cartoons
We’re emerging from the Time of Plague and Social Disruption. Today, I read Rebecca Mead’s piece in The New Yorker about the Cerne Abbas Giant on the Chalk Downs and thought again about Sir Terry Pratchett and how much I … Continue reading Terry Pratchett’s Coup de Coeur
A mild satire inspired by Pulver and Burke’s list of fantasy novel tropes and clichés “And just what qualifies you?” the Priest of the Pram gods asked. “We’re short, for one thing,” the half-meter tall, dumpling-shaped man replied. “Not so little. … Continue reading A Nod to Satire
Nostalgia-Nostalgie Look at the list of current bestsellers and you will find an array of books about dysfunctional families, dystopian societies, global catastrophe, or protagonists living really screwed-up lives. The phenomenon is easy to understand. Many of us are coping with deep-seated anxieties about our world, our health, or even our survival. No wonder, then, that a little book, a collection of short stories, Le petit Nicolas (Nicholas) by René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé, appeals. It offers the reader a refuge from such cares. A wistful but unsentimental fantasy about a little boy living with his bourgeois parents in a … Continue reading Nostalgia-Nostalgie
Caroline’s husband received an email from his mother, Roberta DeLazio, today. She announced her plans to move in with Caroline and her son. Roberta lives in Oregon and Caroline lives in Maine. Here is Caroline’s gracious response. Hi- Roberta, dear, Ezio tells me you hope to move to Bangor in three months and that you’d like to live with us. How nice, but I see Ezio didn’t tell you the good and bad news. Good news, because we finally sold the house, which saves us so much $$ and gives us some cash toward our retirement. Bad news because … Continue reading Email to Roberta
Susan Bass Marcus Writes 
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