Essays
Here is a sampling from a series of essays Bill wrote for PageOneLit, a Literary Newsletter Website. Bill will continue these essays here on a regular basis.
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The Great Quiet of Hemingway's Attic
These days, there is Marcelline's old steamer trunk, a wine bottle from Spain, a cello, two wrought-iron gas stanchions from the late 19th century and National Geographics from 1912, 1915, and 1918 complete with scribbling on the pages from Ernest's father, or perhaps from Ernest himself. There are two small lithographs from 1945 advertising bullfights in Spanish, parts of a Victorian bed and a crib, as well as boxes and boxes of bronze heads that look curiously like the great writer, marked "Hemingway Busts."
The Politics of Obscurity
John Kennedy Toole. How many people have heard of him? Maybe some. Maybe.
The Writing Life
So you've finished the book. You have spent years on it probably. Sweated over it for thousands of hours. If someone gave you an hourly wage you would be rich. What started out as an idea has become a three hundred and fity maybe four hundred and fifty page manuscript looking now like some white tablet of promise on your desk. There it sits.
New York (a 9/11 reflection)
Ah, my fellow New Yorkers. My heart breaks when I see the pictures every night. What have they done to your skyline, your soul, your heart. For you are the people of our country.
For My Fallen Countrymen
You who only wanted to work and have children and have life have passed. You have been thrust into a darkness we can only imagine. For in a blink of any eye life was snatched from you and now you are below the steel and the concrete of our fallen symbol. You are the people of us all.
The Ha Ha Culture
We live in the ha ha culture now. Maybe you've noticed all the magazines and newspapers saying ha ha you don't have what these people have. It's literally everywhere. Our culture is based on presenting people with what they don't have.
The Offering
Finishing a novel is a bit like making an offering. You spend years of your life moving toward this moment. A novel begins with an idea and finishes like a symphony. Then once you have finally dotted the last i and crossed the last t you send it off into oblivion quite unsure what will happen.
A Writer Answers The Call of Fame
The phone rings. I glance at the clock. Six A.M.
"Hello," I mumbled groggily.
"Mr. Hazelgrove, sir! I know it's early, but have you seen the paper?"
The Reality Of Our Times
Our reality is a strange one. One has only to turn on the television and see what people are pawning off as the new reality. The Osburnes, Anna Nicole. These are reality shows presented because presumably fiction can no longer hold our attention. Our dreams are no longer of any interest to us.
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