Author: Scott McKenzie

My So Called Punk

Check out some of my brief comments about My So-Called Punk: Green Day, Fall Out Boy, The Distillers, Bad Religion–How Neo-Punk Stage-Dived into the Mainstream on Beatrice today. It’s an expansive look at the punk scene and should fascinate any music fan. I had a great chat with author Matt Diehl the other night so…

continue reading

The Most Famous Character in American Literature?

Some time ago, I visited Louisville, KY to do some research for a novel. I stayed at the grand Seelbach Hotel. First opened in 1905, the Seelbach has hosted nine US presidents, gangster Al Capone, numerous Hollywood celebrities, and most relevant to us, F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Fitzgerald frequently visited the hotel during his Army assignment…

continue reading

J.E. Pitts to Appear at Square Books

You might recall my interview with J.E. Pitts from a while back. Pitts is a painter, a poet, the editor of Vox, and the poetry editor for The Oxford American. And is first book, The Weather of Dreams, has recently been released. It’s been said of the collection that, “Step by step, the reader’s sense of…

continue reading

Slashed Books

  The New York Times had an interesting article yesterday where authors provided their suggestions for book that could be edited down with large sections cut. It’s an amusing little exercise. What titles would you dramatically whittle down? Off the top of my head, I think I’d tackle James Michener’s Hawaii, just because it’s fresh in…

continue reading

What’s Hot Right Now

There is the eternal question of trying to write a book that cashes in on a hot trend. Authors say, “I’m going to write a thinly veiled novel about being a tyrannical CEO’s assistant (or movie star’s assistant, or editor’s assitant, or a blogger from Terre Haute’s assistant, whatever) and hit the bestseller list.” Or,…

continue reading