My newest article in Mental Floss is 39 Dishes from the First Christmas Menu, Published in 1660. If the thought of planning Christmas dinner makes you nervous, be glad you weren’t born in the Renaissance. The earliest known published Christmas…
My newest article on Mental Floss is about Santa Claus. It turns out that a church in Bari, Italy has St. Nicholas’s remains and they claim that his bones are releasing a sweet smelling liquid that they call manna. Every…
Check out my newest for Mental Floss: 5 Obscure Looney Tunes Cartoons. That’s right, weird, cool, visually interesting cartoons for your Thanksgiving enjoyment. Watch them now before Warner Brothers takes them down!
Wow, is all I can say to this passage about Robert Louis Stevenson Writing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Robert Louis Stevenson [churned] out Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in six days while under the pall of tuberculosis and the…
I have a new article in Mental Floss: 10 Fascinating Facts About Ravens. The raven is an amazing bird. It’s incredibly smart, it plays with other animals, and it can talk. I was so impressed while researching this article, I…
I have a new article up on Mental Floss called 11 Nintendo Games Based on Classic Works of Literature. Turns out there were Nintendo games based on all kinds of books, from Tom Sawyer to Frankenstein to Peter Pan. And…
I have a new article up in Mental Floss: 10 Strange Facts About Hot Air Balloons. Did you know that Abraham Lincoln formed a Balloon Corps during the Civil War? And that the first passengers in a hot air balloon…
I have a short story up on Monkeybicycle called “Undertaker.” It’s about a girl, a ghost, and a sinister prairie dog. That’s right. Sinister prairie dog. How can you resist? Click here to read Undertaker.
Hurrah! I have a second article up in Mental Floss. This one is about forensic facial reconstruction, when they scan the skeletal remains of a famous historical person and make a 3D model of his or her face. For example,…
I am a fan of Mental Floss, so I’m thrilled that they are running an article I wrote … about stilts! In France in the 19th century, an entire town lived on stilts. Stilt jousting is a real thing—an entire…
I wrote a guest blog post at Superstition Review’s s[r] blog about getting stuck on writing fiction. Here’s a sample: Lately, I’ve been getting stuck while writing short stories. I’ll be working on a promising idea with a good set-up…
I have a short humor/satire piece in Defenestration this morning. It’s inspired by toy shopping over the holidays. Check it out: The Lil’ Richy Einstein Play-a-Majig.