There are actually, in my experience, two giveaways for crummy screenplays or teleplays. The first is the extent to which characters address each other by name. If  you’re writing dialogue with no ear for actual speech, it sort of makes sense to put down lines like “This isn’t about the money, Brian,” or “I long […] … learn more→

My Facebook (and actual) friend Gene Seymour posted this the other day: Some 40 years ago, Wilfrid Sheed began his post-mortem for Cyril Connolly by asking who the best living writer of English prose is now. His pal John Leonard made a case for Malcolm Muggeridge while Sheed tossed out such eminences of the era […] … learn more→

I didn’t know I was named for the devil until I studied on an exchange program in Belgium. There, I would be introduced as “Mademoiselle Luci Férriss,” and the people who had begun stretching out their hands would recoil. “Lucifer!” they exclaimed more than once. “Why would your parents have saddled you with such a […] … learn more→