Writing
What Happens When the President Gets Sick?
The recent news of positive COVID-19 tests for a valet for President Trump and an aide to Vice President Pence revive a thorny question: What happens if the president gets sick? As shown by the corona-related illness of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the virus can incapacitate those in high office. What happens if we…
Read MoreImpeachment and George Washington: When it rains, it pours
Back in April, I wrote two short pieces on history topics of interest to me — impeachment trials and George Washington. So, naturally enough, they both launched on the web this weekend, within 24 hours of each other. So I might as well promote them together, right? You can check out: My take that historians…
Read MoreDoes Going There Matter?
Multi-prize-winning author T.J. Stiles (Custer’s Trials, The First Tycoon) recently posed this question on social media. “Do historians have to visit the sites in their books?” he asked. “I say no, no more than you have to have been alive in the times you write about.” Stiles contended that what is important is “personal experience,”…
Read MoreMisspelling: An American Tradition
Occasionally I despair over rampant, often intentional misspellings in the modern world. Doesn’t anyone, I rant inwardly, proofread any more? Was H&M being droll when it misspelled “genius” in the t-shirt on the left? I don’t think so. Perhaps that’s the correct spelling in Swedish. And in the billboard on the right, the Miller Brewing…
Read MoreTrump: Haunted Anew by the Ghost of Andrew Johnson
More echoes of the benighted Andrew Johnson Administration of 1865-69 reverberate around President Trump with the current logjam at the top of the Consumer Financial Protection Board. Deputy Director Leandra English asserts the statutory right to direct the agency following the resignation of its director; claiming to act under a different law, President Trump has…
Read MoreTen Best Mystery/Thriller Writers
Wrapping up my blog tour for my historical mystery, The Babe Ruth Deception, I want to honor ten mystery/thriller writers who made me want to write that type of book. The list reflects my tastes, freely acknowledged here: Not a lot of gore or mass violence. They’re distractions. Smart, polished writing. Close, loving attention to the people in the…
Read MoreWriting Great Characters Like Babe Ruth
Writing about familiar historical figures is a central challenge of writing historical fiction, and also a great joy. The writer, of course, has to replicate any widely-known qualities about the character. Abraham Lincoln, for example, has to be tall. Ulysses Grant really should chain-smoke cigars. But the novelist needs to tell us more, to lead…
Read MoreBabe Ruth Built the Best Brand Ever
Our digitized world is obsessed with branding. The road to success, we’re told, is to create a public image of a consistent experience/product/person that people will want to acquire or be exposed to. That’s why the trade association for accountants published “Five Tips to Branding Yourself” (how, in fact, do accountants brand themselves?). It’s why Success Magazine…
Read MoreUp Next: G. Washington, America's Master Politician
I’ve just signed with a Penguin imprint, New American Library, to write a book about The Big Guy — GWash himself, the Master of Mount Vernon, the man-myth who was indisputably the key figure in the founding of the United States and without whom, well, things would have gone very different and a whole lot…
Read More225th Birthday of America's Bill of Rights!
I’m delighted to be among the first to proclaim the 225th anniversary of the ratification of America’s Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Those amendments protect individual liberties that Americans hold most dear, and became central to our national character after the Fourteenth Amendment (adopted in 1868) applied them against state…
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