Professor,
Communication, Arts, and the Humanities
The University of Maryland Global Campus
This was an interesting question posted to the writer John Updike by John Freeman, an interviewer on PBS’s Blank by Blank. This interview with Updike, who found a way to write with four small children running in and out all day long, intrigued me. I, too, have four small children […]
I do periodic revisits of different databases, since they are updated from time-to-time. For example, Chronicling America (one of my favorites), which updated their electronic holdings of The Pensacola Journal back in June. Sometimes I just don’t catch everything on the first run-through. Database revisits are akin to editing drafts. […]
Remember my visit to Chipley in May, 2014, to see Emmett’s boyhood home? There’s improvements going on! A member of the Myers family shared with me that they are having some work done on that lovely home. I was so happy to hear about that — overall, the house appears […]
NPR’s Linton Weeks has a great story on lost American slang from the 1800s, something right up my alley as I write Emmett’s story. Weeks cites James Maitland’s 1891 Dictionary of American Slang, which you can download for your very own, here, via Google Books. It is an awesome read […]
I haven’t posted all that often this month; just a lot going on in and around the writing cave. I’ve been writing a lot on the book. It feels like I’m making progress, but it is really going S-L-O-W-L-Y. The writing process that has always worked for me is to […]
I don’t really give much credence to the little quizzes I see on the Internet at different sites like Playbuzz.com, although I think they are entertaining, even funny. For instance: Which ‘Steel Magnolia’ Are You? (According to the quiz, I’m Clairee Belcher.) Or, Which Addams Family Member Are You? (Results […]
In honor of Minnie Kehoe and Minnie Neal, two strong women I’ve uncovered in Emmett Wilson’s biography, I want to see this movie. It is due out in October. The link to the movie trailer is here. Of course, no one alive is around to vet the details in this […]
All summer, I’ve had one student who refused to write ‘manpower’ when referring to his employees in ALL of his related class research papers, and would write, instead, ‘man power.’ He has female employees. He got irate at me in a class discussion one week when I pointed out what […]
If you are a fan of The Andy Griffith Show, you know who Otis Campbell is: The lovable town drunk who has access to Mayberry’s jail cell after his usual Saturday night spree. He lets himself into the jail on Saturday nights if Andy or Barney isn’t around to ‘check’ […]
Last month, I had an article about Great Oaks, a historic house in Greenwood, Florida. There’s an Emmett Wilson connection to it: His sister Dora married a man, W.E. Bryan Smith, whose relatives lived in the home. It is very likely Emmett saw this house, or, visited it in his […]
Tell my story. 