My Substack

One of the best examples of Art Deco architecture is right here in my hometown of Cincinnati. Union Terminal (home of the Cincinnati Museum Center), completed in the early 1930s, is a curvaceous deco piece of loveliness. (I might be slightly biased…

The summer after I graduated from college, I studied for six weeks in London. I have many vivid memories of the jet-lagged bus ride from Gatwick Airport to our dorms at Kings College, and one of them is seeing huge billboards of Tom Cruise’s face,…

Two Sundays ago, I fell while running. I was two-and-a-half-miles into a five-mile loop, and I skidded on the pavement so hard, I ripped through the wonder-fiber of my super-expensive ASICS tights and right into my flesh. My right knee and thigh took the…

One of my favorite grown-up things to do is talk to groups of students about writing as a career. I love it when I get to tell them: “Hey, you know all of those people who say that you can’t make a good living as a writer? Ignore them all. They are…

Football isn’t really my sport. Except there are two things I love to watch. First is when there’s a bunch of fancy action, and suddenly there’s a guy with a ball who is running right through people, creating holes to move where there are no…