I was reading an AI-generated story today. It was well-written technically, but lacked any spirit or writer’s voice. It went nowhere. It was full of hackneyed cliches. Apparently, short story magazines (the few that remain) are being inundated by bland, machine-written texts in the hopes of making some easy money for their human masters. This […]

My father, who I love dearly, is a conservative, cautious sort. He has 5 credit cards to his name — a couple of Visa’s, an American Express, and a Costco credit card — because if he’s in Europe he wants to have $15-30 thousand dollars of credit “cash” available to him in an emergency. Why […]

This poem fits my heart to a T. It is a paean to winning. And winning it all. Unlike the music group Rush’s song “Bravado,” which celebrates attempts at greatness that lead to failure, “Victory” by Greg Nikolic exults in attempts at greatness that WIN. Take your own message from it.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a man from El Salvador, living in the United States, who was deemed wrongfully deported by the immigration men with their silver mirrorshades. He was sent back to El Salvador with no hope of returning, until the Supreme Court heard his case and ordered the president to make “an effort” to […]

What is it about the notion of empire that fascinates so many men? Why do we think that an empire would be somehow cooler than a democracy? In the Star Wars mythological system, the Empire replaces a decrepit and tottering Republican system. The Empire is seen as stronger, more stable — a natural fallback position […]

Why doesn’t the United States just reach up and gulp down Canada? Perhaps it’s partly because Canada has value to the U.S. as an independent and sovereign state. Canada is a kind of mirror image America, with kinder, gentler social programs, higher taxes, and public health care. These are places America might want to head […]

The pretty girl with the raven-dark hair was crying bitterly to herself. She was sitting outside a dance club, her butt parked on the curb, her bony knees raising in the air. Her miniskirt was torn. All of a sudden, shameless, she let out a primal scream that echoed down the back alleys and front […]

This is my first try at a modified Petrarchan sonnet. Be gentle with me, muse!

John Connor ran for his life. The last terminator was still functional, still after him. His entire bodyguard had been slaughtered, but not before they got rid of the 8 terminators in the bunch. The ninth was waiting abovedecks on the USS Ronald Reagan, a large naval vessel docked at San Diego. John wiped sweat […]

What makes the territory so exciting is that Ontario is storyland, a setting broad enough to provide the living dreams for several lifetimes of writing. There are over a million square kilometers. There is almost 40% of the Canadian population. There’s lesser known but still inspiring cities — Timmins, Kingston, Windsor, Thunder Bay, Ottawa (the […]