Biography Archives - Page 2 of 3

The Writing Life

Written by glenn on July 27, 2013 · 2 Comments

I don’t know anything more exciting than starting a new book – nor anything more scary than finishing one. In the beginning there’s a wonderful new story forming in your imagination, growing and blossoming and spreading out like the most beautiful flower you’ve ever seen. (Yes, it’s that good.) There […]

A Meditation on Writing and Publishing

Written by glenn on July 7, 2013 · Leave a Comment

So far I’ve written seven novels and published one—soon to be two. I have no agent and no publisher, not least because I’ve rarely sought either one and even then with little real determination. Which raises a couple of questions: Why am I writing? Why have I made so little […]

Self-Diagnosing

Written by glenn on June 15, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Self-diagnosing on the World Wide Web may be the best thing that ever happened to hypochondria. Web MD, the Mayo Clinic, and any number of other highly-regarded sources will be happy to enumerate and describe in frightening detail every possible illness of which that itch in your left armpit could […]

On This Memorial Day: How I Came to Stay Home

Written by glenn on May 27, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Given that its Memorial Day, the title makes it sound like this might be be some sort of political rant, but it’s not. It’s just a story. One of those life stories—we all have them—that I don’t entirely understand myself. In 1969 I was in Bloomington, Indiana, a graduate student […]

The Eight-Fold Way: Feeding the Spirit

Written by glenn on April 15, 2013 · Leave a Comment

In this final post of this series, we come to the final step of the Eight-Fold Way: True Composure or, as I like to think of it, feeding the spirit. This step traditionally is associated with concentration, meditation, absorption or one-pointedness of mind. The original term, “samadhi,” literally means to […]

The Eight-Fold Way: Body and Mind

Written by glenn on April 6, 2013 · Leave a Comment

So far I’ve discussed the questions I associate with True Awareness, True Understanding, True Speech, True Action, and True Vocation. In this post I want to talk about True Effort and True Mindfulness. Traditionally, true effort—also called right effort or diligence—is consciously directing our life energy to the transformative path of creative […]

The Eight-Fold Way: Actions

Written by glenn on March 24, 2013 · Leave a Comment

So far I’ve discussed the questions I associate with True Awareness, True Understanding and True Speech. In this post I want to talk about True Action and True Vocation. Traditionally, both of these have to do with an ethical foundation for life. True action (also called right action) is most […]

The Eight-Fold Way: Understanding and Truth

Written by glenn on March 17, 2013 · Leave a Comment

In the last post, I talked about the fact that I have come to associate questions with each of the terms of The Eight-Fold Way and I briefly discussed the first. Today I want to focus on the second and third terms: True Understanding and True Speech. Traditionally, true understanding—also […]

The Eight-Fold Way: Paying Attention

Written by glenn on March 5, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Buddhists like to count things: the four noble truths, the eight-fold way, the ten precepts, and many, many more. It all sounds very precise when you first encounter it and, boy, would you be wrong about that. One way or another, however, all of these countless ideas, concepts, admonitions, suggestions—whatever […]

A Few Thoughts (and Stories) about Guns

Written by glenn on February 18, 2013 · 2 Comments

I grew up with guns. My Dad kept a loaded .32 revolver in the nightstand next to his bed. I had my own .22 rifle by the time I was twelve. In the books I write, both my detectives carry guns. People frequently shoot at them and they very effectively […]