Like many folks, I am embarking on this holiday season as a divorcee, post-messy breakup. And like others, I've heard everyone's advice over, and over, and over again.

Thankfully, this year has been so damn busy I haven't had time to sit down and weep for days at a...

It's not about fame, it's about having your voice heard. Given the overwhelming success of American Idol and now knock-off shows such as NBC's The Voice, the facade of having your voice heard, especially if it's truly worth hearing, is omnipresent among the media. However, most artists worth the salt...

As a parent and published author, I stress to my children, ad nauseam, the importance of maintaining a healthy relationship with books. And not just trendy books about Spongebob Squarepants, Dora the Explorer or Archie Comics, but through the classics of our time. Reading, even if it is the books...

Truth be told, I'm a huge Obama supporter. And I have been from the minute I heard about him. Does he have his faults? Of course. Who doesn't? But I think we need, as a country, to lighten up. Don't you think that someone, somewhere, somehow checked his "CV" before...

One of the first "images" of jazz that influenced me not only as a musician but a budding writer was the infamous one of saxophonist Dexter Gordon surrounded by smoke with a pensive, almost exquisite look on his face. He was lost in a moment of thought or waiting for...

Typically I'm not the type to poke fun at any one person among the crowd. Instead I like to poke fun at the entire crowd or "type" of people making fools of themselves at once. I am not a terrible person, just someone who needs more therapy to deal with...

Ah... It's that time of year again. By now, you're sitting among family members and friends around your fireplace, television, and/or the tree looking at the mess around you. Tomorrow we'll begin the process of traveling home or cleaning up the mess our families left behind. This is also the...

Recently, I discovered a young adult author through a literary agent on Twitter. Her name is Bridget Zinn. Bridget recently had two of her novels sold at auction to Hyperion/Disney. For those who don't live in the literary world, this is an amazingly big, gigantic, wonderful deal. But there's...

This week marks my 32nd Thanksgiving holiday. This week also marks the 32nd time, give or take the few years I was sublimely oblivious to the atrocity of "Black Friday," that I have witnessed a frightening display of consumerism. For those who do not know the term, "Black Friday" is...

I was in a bed in the basement of a local hospital after an operation, unable to move, when it dawned on me that I might be dying.

The problem had begun six months earlier with a botched open Nissen-Fundoplication surgery. Six weeks of pain and fever after...