Far from being able to encapsulate the many literary wonders that the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts, my new column over at the Hudson Valley Writers Guild does attempt to offer a glimpse of the wonderful experience of wandering Northampton’s streets after a strong cocktail and a plate of oysters, darting into one bookshop after another. It’s a real pleasure and I can’t wait to go back and explore some more. And let me tell you, there’s plenty to explore. Until then, I hope you’ll enjoy this bookshop hunting column. And if you like it, there are plenty of others on archive at the HVWG website.
10 Blogging Tips for Beginners
People have been blogging since the mid-90s, so it’s not exactly a cutting-edge medium for creating and monetizing content, especially when you compare it to things like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and other platforms. But if you’re a wordsmith at heart and want to give blogging a try, I’ve selected ten tips to help you get your passion project off the ground. Now, if you’re looking to monetize your blog, that’s a whole other game, so for now I’m just going to focus on getting your blog up and running in order to attract enough readers to (hopefully) justify any ads you might want to allow on your site. This is advice for someone who wants to share their work, their passion, and their ideas first and foremost, and blogging remains a great way to do that and reach potentially interested readers.
Read moreA Bookshop Tour of Southern Vermont
It feels like a hundred years since the “Before Times” when I could travel around and hunt for bookshops, and Vermont has always been one of my favorite places to do that. My latest Bookshop Hunting column, “A Tour of Southern Vermont,” explores that region and is now up at AlbanyPoets.com, a fantastic literary website that covers upstate NY, the Capital District, and surrounding areas. I typically write these columns about one trip that spans a few bookshops, but this one is a culmination of many trips over a few years, and if I happened to have missed a new (or old!) shop along the way, I’d love to know! Thanks as always for reading, and please keep supporting your local indie bookshops during this pandemic!
New Bookshop Hunter Column Now at FIVE:2:ONE Magazine
The third edition of my Bookshop Hunter column for the fantastic folks over at FIVE:2:ONE Magazine is now live over at their website. This one is has the headline "Don't Go back to Rockville," and concerns my REM-fueled road trip through upstate New York into the lovely towns and rolling hills of Saratoga and Washington counties. The trip includes a visit to a barn bookshop just outside of the town of Greenwich, NY, where I lived when I was a married young man years ago, and I hadn't been back in ages. The town holds both good memories and bad and I was somewhat apprehensive to return, for a number of reasons, but the lure of bookshops was too strong to hold me back. I hope you enjoy this third edition of the column, and feel free to check out the other editions or the more in-depth reviews of the specific shops mentioned in the column. Thanks for taking a look, and keep hunting those bookshops!
The Bookshop Hunter: Journey to the Isle of Dogs
Beyond writing reviews of independent bookshops at my other blog at this site, The Bookshop Hunter, I have also started to write a column about my adventures on the road going out and visiting all of these shop, writing about who I see, what I do, where I go, and so on. The second offering in this series is now up at the incredible FIVE:2:ONE Magazine and it's called "The Bookshop Hunter: Journey to the Isle of Dogs." This edition talks about my trip into western Massachusetts to see the recent Wes Anderson film, Isle of Dogs, and to hit up a half dozen bookshops along the way. If you like it you can also find my first column at the site too! Thanks for taking a look, and there will be plenty more bookshop hunting journeys and columns coming soon! Thanks.
Bookshop Hunter Column at FIVE:2:ONE Magazine
I've been seeking out bookshops and reviewing them at my other blog, The Bookshop Hunter, for a few months now. It has been a blast, and now I have a column over at FIVE:2:ONE Magazine about my bookshop hunting trips around upstate New York, NYC, and beyond. In this first column, "The Bookshop Hunter: Electric City and Beyond," I explore Schenectady, NY and other nearby towns. FIVE:2:ONE is an weird-baby consortium of awesome writers, reviewers, poets, columnists, artists, and plenty more. They always have something new going on and I highly recommend you check them out!
