Baseball and Writing
Marshall McLuhan, our all-knowing guru whom Kingwell quotes, says that baseball is a game about timing and waiting, “the entire field in suspense waiting upon the performance of a single player.”
A Commentary on the Changing Media Landscape
If you’re interested in how traditional media and storytelling are changing for the everyday person, you won’t want to miss this week’s episode of Late Talks on Air! I sat down with Kevin Kolbe, a media veteran turned YouTuber and author of two best-selling books on live streaming and video production. Kevin is passionate about empowering everyday creators and organizations to tell their stories in today’s fast-evolving digital landscape. He’s not just someone who writes about these changes—he lives them, drawing on his rich background in radio and TV to inform his hands-on work as a creator. During our conversation,
Before we go all nuclear…
Concerns about nuclear power have often arisen only in the wake of tragic events elsewhere. Nearly fifteen years ago, our editor interviewed two energy experts on the safety and so-called “clean-energy” status of nuclear power, just months after the Fukushima meltdown. With the current crisis in Iran and stressed resources amid growing energy demands, the debate around nuclear power remains as urgent and relevant as ever. Join us on Episode 115 on Late Talks on Air for the full story. Author InRetro Studios
Seeing Your Words in Someone Else’s Book
(Celebrating National Poetry Month)
for my friend, Susan McCaslin
One True Sentence
–By J.S. Porter (for Blake) Shortly after the three-part, six-hour documentary film HEMINGWAY by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick in 2021, a book appeared entitled One True Sentence: Writers & Readers on Hemingway’s Art edited by Mark Cirino & Michael Von Cannon, with an introduction by Burns and Novick. The book took its inspiration from Hemingway’s famous musing in A Moveable Feast: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” In One True Sentence, scores of critics and readers choose the particular sentence in Hemingway’s work that rings truest to them.
Lists
–By J.S. Porter (for Cheryl, who insisted on my seeing the Hemingway museum outside of Havana and the studio of Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence and the mountain he so rapturously painted) So… you’re a celebrity. What do you want in your dressing room?A woman of simple taste: Sophia Loren wants white roses in her room.Britney Spears wants Herve Leger dresses, Snickers bars, Diet Coke, magnolia blossoms, chicken, and potato salad. She also wants a manicurist, a facialist and a massage therapist That’s a list. “The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature.” So
Snapshots of Patti Smith
Writer JS Porter reminisces on the work of Patti Smith
On Margaret Atwood’s Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts
–By J.S. Porter for John Robert Colombo “ATWOOD, MARGARETMargaret Atwood, like the CN Tower, is a free-standing structure, and needs no patronizing props of reference to her sex or her nationality.” Quote from Northrop Frye in John Robert Colombo’s The Northrop Frye Quote Book. No one has put Toronto, city of raccoons and ravines, on the world literary map as securely as Margaret Atwood. To quote myself from a Globe review years ago, “Margaret Atwood is a writer who has scratched her name on the tablet of the English language. She belongs to the world.” How does one read the
Souvankham Thammavongsa
(Poet, Short-Story Writer, Novelist)
Simple Creative Tools to Get Unstuck
Pen and Ink. Lately, I have been so steeped in research for upcoming episodes, eLearning projects and a documentary I’m working on – that once the research for at least part of my current workload was over, I became stuck. Not burnt out, just a bit stuck. Research is just the beginning, isn’t it? Although we write ‘during’ research (SME interview notes, process and document summaries, annotations, etc.), what comes next – to write what we learned about a very complex issue – in a way that others can easily follow can be daunting. And this, of course, can lead
Trending Posts
Baseball and Writing
Marshall McLuhan, our all-knowing guru whom Kingwell quotes, says that baseball is a game about timing and waiting, “the entire field in suspense waiting upon the performance of a single player.”
A Commentary on the Changing Media Landscape
If you’re interested in how traditional media and storytelling are changing for the everyday person, you won’t want to miss this week’s episode of Late Talks on Air! I sat down with Kevin Kolbe, a media veteran turned YouTuber and author of two best-selling books on live streaming and video production. Kevin is passionate about empowering everyday creators and organizations to tell their stories in today’s fast-evolving digital landscape. He’s not just someone who writes about these changes—he lives them, drawing on his rich background in radio and TV to inform his hands-on work as a creator. During our conversation,
Before we go all nuclear…
Concerns about nuclear power have often arisen only in the wake of tragic events elsewhere. Nearly fifteen years ago, our editor interviewed two energy experts on the safety and so-called “clean-energy” status of nuclear power, just months after the Fukushima meltdown. With the current crisis in Iran and stressed resources amid growing energy demands, the debate around nuclear power remains as urgent and relevant as ever. Join us on Episode 115 on Late Talks on Air for the full story. Author InRetro Studios
Seeing Your Words in Someone Else’s Book
(Celebrating National Poetry Month)
for my friend, Susan McCaslin
One True Sentence
–By J.S. Porter (for Blake) Shortly after the three-part, six-hour documentary film HEMINGWAY by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick in 2021, a book appeared entitled One True Sentence: Writers & Readers on Hemingway’s Art edited by Mark Cirino & Michael Von Cannon, with an introduction by Burns and Novick. The book took its inspiration from Hemingway’s famous musing in A Moveable Feast: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” In One True Sentence, scores of critics and readers choose the particular sentence in Hemingway’s work that rings truest to them.
Lists
–By J.S. Porter (for Cheryl, who insisted on my seeing the Hemingway museum outside of Havana and the studio of Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence and the mountain he so rapturously painted) So… you’re a celebrity. What do you want in your dressing room?A woman of simple taste: Sophia Loren wants white roses in her room.Britney Spears wants Herve Leger dresses, Snickers bars, Diet Coke, magnolia blossoms, chicken, and potato salad. She also wants a manicurist, a facialist and a massage therapist That’s a list. “The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature.” So
Snapshots of Patti Smith
Writer JS Porter reminisces on the work of Patti Smith
On Margaret Atwood’s Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts
–By J.S. Porter for John Robert Colombo “ATWOOD, MARGARETMargaret Atwood, like the CN Tower, is a free-standing structure, and needs no patronizing props of reference to her sex or her nationality.” Quote from Northrop Frye in John Robert Colombo’s The Northrop Frye Quote Book. No one has put Toronto, city of raccoons and ravines, on the world literary map as securely as Margaret Atwood. To quote myself from a Globe review years ago, “Margaret Atwood is a writer who has scratched her name on the tablet of the English language. She belongs to the world.” How does one read the
Souvankham Thammavongsa
(Poet, Short-Story Writer, Novelist)
Simple Creative Tools to Get Unstuck
Pen and Ink. Lately, I have been so steeped in research for upcoming episodes, eLearning projects and a documentary I’m working on – that once the research for at least part of my current workload was over, I became stuck. Not burnt out, just a bit stuck. Research is just the beginning, isn’t it? Although we write ‘during’ research (SME interview notes, process and document summaries, annotations, etc.), what comes next – to write what we learned about a very complex issue – in a way that others can easily follow can be daunting. And this, of course, can lead