The Gift of Reading: Romancing the Fruitcake—A Tale of Two Genres

For the past two weeks on my morning runs, I’ve been listening to the podcast Christmas Wars: A Very Merry Rivalry on the battle for Christmas movie superiority waged by Hallmark, Lifetime, Hulu, and Netflix, which is a bit on the ironic side because I have absolutely no interest in this genre. 

The Gift of the Math Guy

Before transitioning away from life as a public school educator, I worked as the academic trainer for English and social studies in a large, urban high school in San Antonio. I partnered with English and social studies teachers on strengthening the literacy skills of their students.

The Gift of Reading: We Three Books

On the day after state testing, one of my sophomores burst into the room and announced: “Mr. G, I used rule of three on my essay.”

It was a proud moment. Rule of Three is the concept that words or phrases are inherently more appealing in groups of three. It’s a quick and dirty writing trick/tip I...

The Gift of Reading: Of Authors, Words, and Magic

For most of the past year and half, I have spent most of my waking hours querying or obsessing over querying literary agents for my young adult novel The Closest Thing to a Normal Life.

Getting Nothing for Someone

Just last week, my oldest son asked me what I wanted for Christmas. My answer? Nothing.