fiction, Rants and raves, Reviews, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

The last Christmas movie you’ll ever have to read

News headline: Hallmark has created 42 movies for the holiday.

Subsequently, House Beautiful magazine gushed about the  “comforting predictability of these flicks … No matter which title you switch on, the best thing about a Hallmark holiday movie is knowing that pretty soon you’ll be watching a happy ending.”

I don’t know if people who watch all 42 of these movies get a participation medal or a stay at the sanatorium. And Hallmark isn’t the only one flooding the zone. Somebody, noticing the overwhelming whiteness of characters in Hallmark movies, began putting out ethnic versions with the same insipient stories.

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Dream assignment: The Wedding of the Decade or embedded with Taylor Swift?

I’ve been handed my first writing assignment in ages, covering a much-anticipated wedding in Portugal. At the same time,  an incredible opportunity has come up involving a full-time job for a major newspaper chain covering nothing but Taylor Swift.

Isn’t that just the way these things happen?

You are a nobody for years. Unread, unfollowed, untalked about, an aging ghost of a writer drifting through the literary fields. Suddenly you have to choose between the wedding of the decade and Taylor Swift.

The story of my life.

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