Some of you may not know I live in a little mountain town (which I used to refer to as “Mayberry on the Mountain“).  I’ve lived here 14 years now, the longest I’ve ever been in the same home in my life.

As happens in any community, the service people and other folks will start to recognize you (even in big cities, people will get to know you, if you have any sort of routine).  Anyway, I was dropping by our small local library to return another book I hadn’t had time to read (“The Watchers,” about the first Queen Elizabeth’s spy ring...looked fascinating) and one of the younger librarians hurried over.  “We ordered your book…

Gonna take a break from the novel and the other efforts (Right-Wing Riot, ahem) to share the important work someone is doing.  Elephants hold a special place in my heart and this short video gives just a taste of the contributions a very kind and loving woman has been making for over 25 years in Nairobi, caring for orphaned elephants.

You can learn more about her work here, and the on-going efforts of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the foundation that helps support what she does.  Had I riches, I’d give a lot of them to these folks.  They are, in fact, doing God’s work.

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With a Conservative Book Club!

If, like me, you believe that to change the culture we need to change the story that culture tells itself, then here’s an opportunity to make the change real right now.

Sponsored by the Salem Media Group, this free service wants to be “Your Home for Great Conservative Books.”  Their new site “will allow you to create your own conservative bookshelf, rate books, post comments, and share your favorite books with your friends!”

An important part of their launch is that for the first time, the Conservative Book Club is featuring fiction.  Novels, with a conservative point of view.  It’s an experiment, and if we want them to continue to showcase great fiction …

Here I am, talking about writing, the magic and power of stories, and the world of my novel, “The Big Bang.”

As you know, the book is available in paperback at Amazon,Barnes & Noble, and other brick n’ mortar sites.  You can get the ebook at Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, and over 20 other sites, and it’s an audio book from Audible!  Something about that last part is just pretty damn cool.

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This was lovely and wholly unexpected.  TheBlaze.com ran an excerpt from the opening of Volume One of the Lonesome George Chronicles, The Big Bang.    One major reason it was so nice was because it really excited my Mom.  She’s a fan of Glenn Beck, and after having to read my stuff ever since I was a wee annoying lad of seven, she was thrill to see all of her decades of patience and encouragement pay off with my appearance in the virtual pages of The Blaze.   (Love ya, Mom!)

“Last year we wrote about Liberty Island, a publishing house created by longtime industry executive Adam Bellow to help independent authors see their conservative and libertarian-themed fiction titles come to …

…while kind of whacked out on Nyquil?  Yeah, I came back from New York City with good memories, great pix, and a cold.  Or the flu.  The jury is out on the origin of the attacker, but I had scheduled and rescheduled an interview with Daria Anne DiGiovanni of Writestream Radio so I decided to press on ahead with a little chemical assistance.

I thought I was a bit spacey, but Daria, as always, was a great interviewer and she did her best to keep me on track.  You can listen by clicking here or download it below for future listening at your convenience.

Interviewed by Daria for WriteStream!…

Okay…made it to NYC yesterday and the Book Launch Party. I was an hour and a half late, but that was fine (other than the fact I raced into the hotel room, threw my case and laptop on the bed and raced out, forgetting to change into my grown up shoes).

(I’m in the red.  The gray shoes belong to another fashion threat, Clarke Wilson, husband to my co-conspirator Scary Smart Jamie K. Wilson)

It was great, the restaurant/club was two blocks from the hotel, and literally a stone’s throw from the famed Algonquin Hotel. As I was working hard to talk to folks and thank them for showing up, I didn’t get a lot of pictures…will have to get …

For some reason, when I say that, in my head it’s to the tune of an old blues riff about “I’m goin’ to Kansas City” (first sung in my presence by a homeless drunk in Omaha, Nebraska).

However…my publishers, Liberty Island Media, are having a launch party and I’m going to drop in on them.  It will give me a chance to meet at last and in the actual flesh, the publisher, David Bernstein, and the Editor, Adam Bellow.  Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review and blurber of my novel, will also be in attendance.  I am hoping that my comrades de satire, the mysterious and alluring Ms. Always Right and Scary Smart Jamie K. …

That another “respected” journalist was caught out in a lie.  Not one of those “Yes, I can still fit into my prom dress” lies we’ve all told (at least, I have), but a real whopper.  It’s a Hillary-level work of prevarication by NBC anchor Brian Williams about being in a Chinook that came under serious fire from Iraq farmers.  I mean, he almost crashed.

That is, he almost crashed in his imagination.  He’s told this story repeatedly to such credulous listeners as Alec Baldwin and David Letterman.  He was afraid he was going to die.  That is, in that story he mis-remembered.  Conflated.  Whatever.

Remember the outrage from the press over Obama’s many lies?  Yeah, me, neither.  Okay, remember …