Blues for the Muse - The Writer

Stephen Altman

The Perfect Poem

This is the first full day of autumn. You shouldn't let it pass without reading--preferably aloud, under an old elm with your own true...

Stephen Altman

Cat!

I'm embarrassed, I must say, to have forgotten any mention of cats in a story set, in large part, in the Non-Catholic Cemetery and on the...

Stephen Altman

The Writer as Blockhead

Samuel Johnson famously said,“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” He said this about 250 years ago but it still holds...

Stephen Altman

The Woods at Night

I lived alone for awhile, earlier this past decade, in a three-room cabin in the West Virginia woods across the Shenandoah River from...

Stephen Altman

"I feel as if we've met somewhere . . ."

I was out walking earlier today, putting steps on the Fitbit before the real August heat set it--when a question popped into my head: ...

Stephen Altman

Think of this as a first date, but with sonnets.

If this were our first date and I offered you a novel consisting of 202 sonnets, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? If you've...