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Stephen King Comes to Phenix, Virginia

A brief history of Anti-Lou

When Geese Attack; or, How I Almost Got My Ass Kicked by a Canadian Goose

First Last Date

Latest posts

• Don’t be that parent at a youth sporting event.
• So you want to be a writer but you can’t even sit still for 10 minutes to write anything, even a heaping, steaming pile of absolute dog crap. Try this trick.
• Pedal
• A walk in the woods
• Pileated woodpecker
• What really killed My Buddy
• Pop culture lies I tell my kids: U Can’t Touch This
• The man who hated caller ID
• William Wordsworth once said that the best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
• This is the story of when my cousin pranked his best friend by posting a For Sale: Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pigs ad on Craigslist.

By category

Memoir

• 3 Reasons We Were Meant to be Together
• A brief history of Anti-Lou
• A Christmas (Eve) to remember
• A father’s letter to his children on Father’s Day
• A Greater Plan: A Son Remembers His Dad on Father’s Day
• A List of Things I Dislike Strongly Yet Would Still Prefer Do Than Wrap a Christmas Present
• A little piece of Shauna’s heart
• A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
• A pocket knife from my grandfather
• A Slight Digression On My Own Experience Starting a Rock Band
• An empty chamber, black and hollow and alone
• Are you comfortable driving a tractor?
• Babies Have Soft Spots on Their Skulls
• But whatever I am has its source back there…
• But When You Give a Feast, Invite the Poor, the Crippled, the Lame, the Blind
• Cal Meets Leon Phelps the Cat (When the Lights Go Out at 10:16)
• Contemplating death and the fragility of life
• Creature from the Black Lagoon
• Do I Pack for My Dad’s Funeral?
• Do You Not Know How Beautiful You Are?
• Down by the Water
• El Chupacabra on a Friday night at 1 a.m.
• Episode 5 of This Is Me Being Uncomfortable
• Fish Swim Forth and Stay
• Flying death monster from above
• Gentle, Little Bird
• Grief Is a Fire, Smoldering
• Hello, Anxiety. I Know You Are There
• Hi, My Name is Jeff, and I Suffer from Anxiety
• How Not To Fry An Egg
• How to Make a Grown Man Cry
• I Cry Myself to Sleep at Night Sometimes
• I fell in love with my wife in high school, but thank goodness we never dated
• I Love You So Much, I’m Eating Sardines
• I still see you
• I Was Not Mauled or My Face Eaten Off by a Territorial Bear
• I’ve been thinking about my own mortality a lot lately
• If I am not being creative, I become a lukewarm version of myself and jeopardize my happiness
• In Phenix, Virginia, I Was Born and Raised
• In response to Phenix Being Named to the 10 Small Towns In Virginia Where You’d Never Want To Live
• It Doesn’t Matter Where We Go
• Let It Wayne
• Letter to my Grandmother
• Lord, Help Me Be the Person My Dog Thinks I Am
• May 21 Is My Dog’s Birthday, Not the Day My Dad Died
• My Dad Died, But He Is Not Dead
• My dog was bitten in the face by a squirrel
• One bacon, egg, and cheese bagel later
• Overcoming Anxiety: An Introduction
• Overcoming Anxiety: Meet the Author
• Overcoming Anxiety: What is Anxiety?
• Pedal
• Polly Was a Fat Dog
• Red fire trucks and police cars
• Robbie, Junior
• Sleeping Birds Do Not Sing: A Novel (Excerpt)
• Snapping Green Beans with Granny
• Stephen King comes to Phenix, Virginia
• Text Messages with Friends: The Longtime Friend
• The Court
• The First Phone Call
• The flash mob that wasn’t
• The Ghosts of Childhood
• The Gilliam Shed
• The Junk Drawer of My Childhood
• The Lady Next Door
• The Last Leaf
• The man who hated caller ID
• The Man Who Walked Off the Face of the Earth
• The Music Stops
• The New Kid
• The novel that wasn’t a novel
• The Red Lollipop
• The Seizure
• The Sound of His Voice, Mumbled and Deep
• The Water Sure Is Cold. Deep, Too.
• The Way I Love You
• Then and Now: A Brief History of Phenix, Virginia
• This Great Big Scary Thing
• This is Happiness
• This Is Me Being Uncomfortable: Episode 004
• This Is Me Being Uncomfortable: Seasonal Affective Disorder (Ep. 003)
• This is the story of when my cousin pranked his best friend by posting a For Sale: Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pigs ad on Craigslist.
• Thoughts From My Grandmother’s Funeral; or, This is Not Sad, Depressing Commentary
• Today Is Not About Me: It’s About the People Who Made Me, Me
• True Facts from the Small Town of Phenix, Virginia: The Aces
• Two Simple Words
• We None Truly Ever Die
• Welcome to Phenix: A Nice Place to Live
• When Depression Comes to the Workplace
• When geese attack; or, how I almost got my ass kicked by a Canadian goose
• When the nightmares began
• Where My Father Once Stood
• While On a Run, I Met a Man Who Had Lost 80 Percent of His Hip to Lymphoma. He Talked, I Listened
• ’Twas the day before Christmas

Poetry

• 41
• A Curious Wind
• A poem of immense depth to my wife
• An open letter to my suburban neighbors on the state of my sanity
• Ants Like Cattle at a Trough
• Beautiful crow (haiku)
• Before it is lost
• Birds of One Feather
• Cake
• Dear kids, stop calling my shorts “a bathing suit”
• Dinner in spring
• Do birds sing in Ukraine?
• Godwin’s
• Homemade pizza on a kerosene heater
• I don’t smoke weed anymore
• If I abruptly go silent while on a conference call at work
• Instead of…
• Rabbits
• Raw Potatoes
• Red-tailed hawk
• Robins in Winter
• South Boston Speedway, 1988
• Stowaway On a Cloud
• Sweet Potato Pancakes at 7 AM
• The birds and the bees
• The birds are still asleep
• The Catbird
• The coordination of crows
• The frog and the fish
• The holder of ropes
• The jumping spider and the tree
• The last words of George Floyd
• The proper recourse now
• The secret to a long and happy marriage
• Tin Whistle
• To hell and back with a cigarette break in between
• Today is a blank page
• What the world sounds like when you wake at 5 a.m.
• When my kids start talking to me about Minecraft
• Why God made tall people
• William Carlos Williams was no poet
• Without Mud, There is No Lotus

Writing

• 2017: The Year I Started Writing Again
• Apologies In Advance
• Author Insights: Writing a Book Is a Very Different Experience Than Reading a Book
• Author Insights: Writing Is a Lonely Endeavor
• Book Update 1
• Book Update: Two
• Charles Bukowski on living the life you aspire to live despite all odds
• Craig Lancaster vs. Jonathan Evison
• Creativity isn’t something you should suppress
• Dear literary agent, I wrote a children’s book—call me
• I Don’t Want To Be a Writer Anymore: Part I
• I Don’t Want To Be a Writer Anymore: Part II
• I Don’t Want To Be a Writer Anymore: Part III
• I feel like a failure every time I sit down to write
• I Started Writing Poetry Again; Or, A Brief, Soul Crushing History of Working In a Bagel Shop
• I’m afraid to write this story because…
• In Need of a Summer Read?
• Is My Writing Any Good?
• Joseph Conrad on Writing, Storytelling
• One Sentence at a Time
• Rain or Shine
• Seeking Validation, Grasping for a Sense of Accomplishment
• Setting the Setting
• Should I Stay or Should I Go?
• So you want to be a writer but you can’t even sit still for 10 minutes to write anything, even a heaping, steaming pile of absolute dog crap. Try this trick.
• The accidental book
• The Banana Heads: A graphic novel
• The Day We Went Back In Time
• The Lady Next Door, Now on Kindle
• The Lady Next Door: An Update
• The Last Letters of Vincent van Gogh
• The Successful Writer’s Secret to Writing Every Day: A Condensed Manifesto
• The War is Over
• This Is Me Being Uncomfortable: Episode 2 (Audio)
• To Blog or Not To Blog — That Is the Question
• What’s In a Name: Why I chose the title I did for the memoir I am writing
• Who am I, who are you?
• Who Is My Ideal Reader? Definitely Not Who You Think
• Why I’m giving up blogging — at least for now
• Words
• Writing By Hand Is an Act of Creative Rebellion
• Writing Is Freedom
• Your Story Matters: Processing Pain and Trauma

The Adventures of Fatherman

• (Oh) Henry
• A Child’s Imagination
• A Peaceful Walk Down By the Water; Or, A Fish Hook to the Groin
• Coaching advice from your new soccer coach who knows nothing about soccer but has seen the original Karate Kid more than a dozen times. Sweep the leg, Johnny!
• Colored Sketch of My Daughter Annabelle
• Colored Sketch of My Son Henry
• Conversations With My 2 Year Old Daughter: Episode 1
• Dear kids, stop calling my shorts “a bathing suit”
• Don’t be that parent at a youth sporting event.
• Henry, stop biting the trash can
• How to Administer Ear Drops to a Small (Very Strong) Child
• I Miss Your Speech Impediment
• Mikey, the Ninja Turkey: A Thanksgiving Tale, As Told By My Five Year Old Son
• My kids didn’t think I could still dunk. I had to prove them wrong.
• My Little Anti-Authoritarians
• No Other Place I Would Rather Be
• On Second Thought, I Think I’ll Just Hang Out Here a Little Longer
• One Little Monkey Jumping on the Bed
• Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: A Brief Book Review
• Pop culture lies I tell my kids: U Can’t Touch This
• Ready or Not, Here I Come
• Show, don’t tell
• Sketch off!
• Slow Down, Time
• Stuff My Three Year Old Son Said Today: Volume 1
• Stuff My Three Year Old Son Said Today: Volume 2 (A Halloween Special)
• Summer waterpark alternative
• Ten Things You Shouldn’t Say To Your Pregnant Wife Who is Full Term and Could Go Into Labor Any Minute
• The Banana Heads: A graphic novel
• Welcome to the First Week of Swimming Lessons
• What really killed My Buddy
• When my kids start talking to me about Minecraft