Thomas Burchfield's Writings
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Oct.05.2010
Open Salon
This last weekend, my wife, Elizabeth, and I celebrated our seventh anniversary (Monday, October 4). We left Emeryville on Saturday and drove to what has emerged, over the years of our marriage, as our favorite California neighborhood, the Monterey area.
We always stay in the city of Pacific Grove, immediately west of Monterey. It is a small city of humble...
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Column
Sep.03.2010
Open Salon
Not long after Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, I punched the off-button on MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann’s Countdown show for good.
I started watching Olbermann right after he first appeared on the Colbert Repor-tuh in March 2006. I was drawn to his presence and personality with its nostalgic echoes of Walter Cronkite.
Olbermann has the...
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Article
Aug.18.2010
Open Salon
Genre fiction can be thought of as a “conservative” fiction, mostly because of its tight adherence to the traditional storytelling form that was codified way back when in Aristotle’s Poetics.
The thought is fair. Even so, on occasion, someone brilliant burrows into the old forms and digs a new tunnel that takes readers in startling—often...
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Article
Aug.04.2010
Word Press
“I’d pull my pants down on Times Square if I thought it would get me an audience—” –attributed to Orson Welles, film maker, magician, wine seller
Earlier this year, this correspondent decided to join the swarm into the brave new world-hive of independent publishing—to publish my novel Dragon’s Ark myself, under my own imprint (Ambler House, named after the...
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Article
Jul.28.2010
Open Salon
Is it me, or has the HBO series True Blood become as hackneyed and tiresome as an Ed Wood movie?
I’ve watched the series since it premiered in September 2008, “glamoured” by the promise of a weekly dose of atmospheric, high-toned terror, presented with that HBO sheen. My wife, Elizabeth, was taken by it almost immediately. As for me, I was plenty amused...
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Article
Jul.21.2010
[SPOILER ALERT!]
“History,” a writer named Kevin Briggs once sincerely declared to me, “is better than fiction.”
Kevin’s maxim may be overbroad, but a strong proof for it can be found in the pages of Operation Mincemeat by Ben MacIntyre (Harmony; $25.99), the royally entertaining and true saga of one of the most ingenious and successful...
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Article
Jul.13.2010
Open Salon
[NOTE: POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERTS!]
Some months ago, my heart lifted when I walked into my local independent bookstore (Spectator Books in Oakland) to find Memory (Hard Case Crime; $7.99) by the late Donald Westlake piled high among the new arrivals. I had liked his final novel, Get Real, not too terribly much, so I was grateful for this surprise last...
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Article
Jul.06.2010
Open Salon
Early this year, as I’ve done every year for the last several, I set myself the task of reading one book from Western Literature’s Great Canon.
But first a spoonful of autobiography: Where literature is concerned, I’m completely self-taught. I took one American Lit course while in college (University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh) and haven’t taken another...
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Column
Jun.04.2010
Open Salon
One of the best novels I read last year was The Devil’s Redhead by Northern California author David Corbett. Just recently, he’s presented highbrow thriller fans another literate, emotional, and gritty nail biter entitled Do They Know I’m Running?, a novel that goes behind the demagogue-dominated debate about immigration into a complex, ambiguous, and...
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Article
May.06.2010
this zine
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"Dragon's Ark" is not a book to read just before nodding off. Unless you're on very good terms with your nightmares.”
—David Corbett, Author of "Do They Know I'm Running?"
About Thomas
I'm a professional freelance editor now living in Oakland, California. I've written many articles, essays and reviews for such publications as Swing Time Magazine and Posthoc.com. My first novel Dragon's Ark, a contemporary Dracula tale set...
Connections
Causes Thomas Burchfield Supports
The Nature Conservancy; Africare; Capitol Public Radio
Thomas’s Favorite Books
Ghost Story, Gravity's Rainbow, Pale Fire, Dracula, The Richard Stark novels, Red Harvest, the short fiction of Ramsey Campbell, The Grapes of Wrath, Conjure...
Thomas is a fan of
