My two favorite moments with Milan Stitt, the head of the CMU Dramatic Writing Program: Milan: Is you’re favorite color orange? Me: Yes. Milan: That’s what I thought. A woman’s favorite color is always what looks best on her. Mine is blue. Then he winked. Milan winked a lot. I would wink a lot, too, if I was as good at it as he was. He always looked like your kindly grandfather when he did it. I look like I have a medical condition. AND my other favorite moment: Milan: You’re late. You now have a B in this class, and if you’re late again you get a C, and if you’re late again you fail. The second conversation happened two days after 9-11. And I was never late to class again. I consider that the day I started learning discipline. Milan basically kicked my ass into becoming a good writer. He had moments of ego-crushing flip-of-a-switch meanness. He used to be a priest. And maybe his mother literally dropped dead when he came out to her — we were never quite sure if that story was true. He chewed Nicorette gum in class to get through to his next cigarette. He rarely, rarely acknowledged his mistakes, and I don’t have a clear memory of him ever saying “I’m sorry.” He was completely ridiculous. He was one of the wisest people I’ve ever known. He loved Spain. I think he might have loved us, his students, but found us rather tiresome. Being an editor now, I could see how teaching undeveloped writers could get old after awhile. There are only 5 to 10 real problems in writing. And only two of them or insurmountable: tin ear and inability to take and apply criticism. Milan...

I was sad to wake up this morning to find that Paul Newman had died. But what an amazing, wonderful, and caring life he led. He did a good job. My first Paul Newman movie, is still one of my favorites of all time: What a Way To Go,  a little dark romantic comedy, starring Shirley Maclaine as a woman who marries a string of poor men, only to have them all get rich and die in freak accidents. Paul Newman played a painter who dies at the hands of his robotic painting machine invention, which has made him rich. Definitely worth renting if you haven’t already seen it. Read the New York Times obit (which I’m sure was written months ago and only updated this morning)...

. …send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee. — John Donne . There but for the grace of God go I — I have no idea who said this The news of David Foster Wallace’s death suicide by hanging hit me hard on Saturday. Not because he was a great talent. Confession: I’ve never read his most acclaimed novel, Infinite Jest. Had it on my book shelf for 3 years before I admitted that I wasn’t going to read it, and even worse, didn’t really want to read it. It was over 1000 pages, and from the whole 2 pages that I had read of it, I could tell that it wasn’t exactly a page turner like the last over-1,000-page book that I had read, The Count of Monte Cristo. I gave Infinite Jest away to the Squirrel Hill Library in Pittsburgh right before departing town for L.A. And I didn’t give the thick book with the pretty cloud cover much thought after that. Also, I don’t read essays, which he reportedly excelled at. (This dislike of essays may also be why I seem to be one of the few people in my Facebook circle who is not a “Fan Of” David Sedaris.) No, I was most struck by the David Foster Wallace’s death for two reasons: 1) At a party that I attended after I read the news online of his death, the most common reaction to the announcement of his suicide was,  Who is David Foster Wallace? You see, no movie had ever been made out of his book, so though he was a darling of the literary world, the vast majority weren’t aware of his existence. If a writer hangs himself in his home, and...