Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4661 )

• Wolves? Where?

  

  One of the oldest tricks in the capitalistic playbook is to make something look like a more successful product. Trademarks and copyright laws prevent too close ... Read more

  Posted on 04 August 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Bad Seeds

  

  Strange things happen. I doubt anyone would deny that, even the most skeptical. Sometimes the strange has an edge to it, though. Read more

  Posted on 03 August 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Narrow Passage

  

  While on a rare family visit (it’s scary to get out too much) we visited Watkins Glen State Park in upstate New York. My mother’s family has roots in this... Read more

  Posted on 02 August 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Bonded

  

  It happened this way. When my daughter was young she was interested in dinosaurs. Most kids are. In fact, my wife and I went to a public lecture by a... Read more

  Posted on 01 August 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• No So Innocent

  

  Mark Twain’s best-selling book in his own lifetime was his first commercially produced one: The Innocents Abroad. Originally a set of letters sent during an... Read more

  Posted on 31 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Fear Writing

  

  Unless your publisher is good at marketing, that book you spend years on will remain unknown. That “share” button in the right hands can make all the difference. Read more

  Posted on 30 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Who Watches You

  

  When my wife saw Dominic Johnson’s God Is Watching You on the top of my pile she said “Are you sure you want to be reading that?” Her question was justified,... Read more

  Posted on 29 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Virtual Bible Study

  

  Like just about everybody else, I spend my days online during the pandemic. Well, actually, I spent my days online before that since I’m a remote worker. Read more

  Posted on 28 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Too Close?

  

  Some time back I did a Google search on something like “best novels about possession,” like one does. I was in the midst of writing Nightmares with the Bible... Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• November Dreaming

  

  I recently took part in a non-partisan postcard-writing effort sponsored by Moms Rising. The idea is simple enough: encourage people to get out and vote. Read more

  Posted on 26 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Everybody Knows

  

  One of my favorite Leonard Cohen songs is “Everybody Knows.”  On a related note, the best-selling book in America last week was Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never... Read more

  Posted on 25 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Hebrew Class

  

  It is utterly remarkable that in this year of the Common Era 2020 that even in Unicode you can’t write Hebrew in Microsoft Word without gymnastics. Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Graphic Graphomania

  

  You can spot them fairly easily. Graphomaniacs. Perhaps it’s a bit closer to the surface when you work in publishing, but the person who writes too much can... Read more

  Posted on 23 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• LinkedOut

  

  There are different philosophies behind LinkedIn. (What a world we live in where such a statement is even possible!) When I first signed up, it was a... Read more

  Posted on 22 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• No Smoking

  

  I have never smoked anything in my life. As a kid with chronic bronchitis few things scared me as much as being unable to breathe. I have not assassinated anyon... Read more

  Posted on 21 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Potboilers

  

  “Potboiler” is used in publishing to describe a book written merely to keep a writer going. Full-time authors are comparatively rare, and many occasionally... Read more

  Posted on 20 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Quantum Religion

  

  Quantum mechanics shows deep connections based on empirical evidence. This is Einstein’s famous “spooky action at a distance.” Particles that split apart from... Read more

  Posted on 19 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Gratefully

  

  I confess. I read acknowledgements. Part of it is the vanity of finding someone’s name I know. Or the worse vanity of finding my own name. Read more

  Posted on 18 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Missing Markers

  

  Something truly remarkable happened this week. The Society of Biblical Literature, which, along with the American Academy of Religion, meets annually in... Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• In the Zone

  

  Since it lies somewhere between waking and sleeping, between youth and old age, the Twilight Zone is often where I find myself. Read more

  Posted on 16 July 2020 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY