Norm Benson

#44

It’s noon eastern time. Barack Obama IS the 44th President of the United States.

Study Finds People Like Study Findings

THE WEEK magazine’s contest for this week involved studies that state the obvious: A new study has determined that the closer teenagers live to a lot of liquor stores, the more likely it is that they will drink. Astounding! Please invent another scientific study that proves the obvious and provide the headline for that study.Continue reading “Study Finds People Like Study Findings”

Has it already been eight years?

Gosh, it seems like only a decade ago, that people were voting for a guy they wanted to have a beer with.

My Oh My, How the Time Does Fly

John Stewart, arguably the greatest American songwriter since Wood Guthrie, left us one year ago. During his life, he wrote more than six hundred songs about America from the viewpoint of the “wingless angels,” those who drove the trucks and did the jobs that kept the country alive. He’s best known for being a memberContinue reading “My Oh My, How the Time Does Fly”

From Idea to Bookstore

This may be just a tad tongue-in-cheek. I love the footage of the trees being cut for the paper.

The Week’s “What Next?” Contest

THE WEEK (motto: All You Need to Know About Everything That Matters) is a great weekly news magazine. We love it. It’s full of great writing from all over the world. Well, last week on the last page they added something new, a contest. The prize was one year’s subscription to The Week. We wereContinue reading “The Week’s “What Next?” Contest”

The Week's "What Next?" Contest

Conundrum for the Day

I listen to the podcast of National Public Radio’s Only A Game. The other day I heard a story about the collecting of stories for The Best Sportswriting of 2008. This set me to wondering, given that, whether we writers mean to or not, we use sexual symbols in our prose (see my previous postContinue reading “Conundrum for the Day”

I Think About Baseball When I Write

Crawford Killian has an interesting post about “Sexual symbolism in fiction“. Mr. Killian taught writing (if memory serves, though it might have been English Composition) at Capilano College for forty years and has written several novels. What brought the subject up was he had commented on the passing of Michael Crichton and how Crichton hadContinue reading “I Think About Baseball When I Write”

Multiple POV or Head Hop?

One tenet for writers, besides write, write, write, is read, read, read. I don’t recall where I read it, but a published author said (paraphrasing), “Don’t just read the great stuff, read lousy stuff too.” A couple years ago, I put the first ten thousand words of my story (working title: Timber Beast) on YouWriteOn.com,Continue reading “Multiple POV or Head Hop?”