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Advice for 2020 Democrats

Today, let’s offer some friendly advice to the Democrat nominee nation based on the results of the first debate, and inspired by things to watch for in the upcoming second debate. First, I was born in the middle of the country surrounded by waves of Republicans. I currently work on the East Coast and on the West Coast — and a lot of Democrats pay me a lot of money. I have experience flipping on both sides of this national dime, and the Democrat Party has a long way to go to defeat an anachronistic, charismatic, President who feasts on the gruel of the worst in humanity.

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Paul Newman on Swapping Careers at the Yale University School of Drama

Great teacher, friend, mentor and theatre historian, Dr. Howard Stein, shared a story with his Columbia University in the City of New York MFA Playwriting students at the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre studies.  The topic was eminent actor Paul Newman who was visiting the Yale School of Drama at Howard’s request and he was speaking to the theatre students in a question and answer format. I will share that story with you now.

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Following Kurt Vonnegut to Write a Great Story

I love Kurt Vonnegut with a passion of a thousand fires and was devastated when he passed away five years ago. He wrote some of the best short and long fiction that I have ever read including Player Piano as well as some amazing advice for writers, all of which I positively love. One of his best pieces of advice came in the form of eight tips for writers, which I read about once a year to keep it somewhat fresh in my mind.

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The Definition of Backseat Parenting

I thought about what could be a new expression relating to parenting as we know it in the twenty first century — though I am getting the inclination that it may be an ages old way of thinking that just has found new ways to raise its ugly head. We know about Helicopter Parenting and Velcro Parenting — but are you familiar with backseat parenting?

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Dr. Phil and the Risk of Television Doctoring

Last week on the Dr. Phil show — something so sad and utterly amazing happened — and Dr. Phil and his parental guests and an “expert” in the audience failed to see, and then act upon, the alarming breakthrough a young woman expressed right under their television noses.

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Writing Advice for Authors

If you are an aspiring book author I want to give you some blunt author-to-author advice you will not likely get from your publisher or your agent. Agents and publishers generally do not want this sort of discussion to take place between authors because they don’t want us sharing this information.

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