Welcome to my writing page.
I have done a lot of writing over the past few years but it was always “on the side,” so to speak. My primary professional focus was college teaching. I recently made a decision to move more intentionally into writing and I plan to use this part of my website to explore this interest.
The links below will take you to some things that I have written for various publications, together with comments about some of those pieces. Over time I hope to add material to this part of the site chronicling my experiences as a writer.
July 14, 2011
After years of wondering if I should get a literary agent, I have finally taken the plunge. Today I have my first insight into why that was a good move.
I am working on a proposal for a book with the working title Creating Adam that I hope will be published by one of the larger New York publishing houses. If I am successful, this will be a tremendous boost to my writing career and hopefully provide a whole new set of opportunities.
I put together a book proposal a few weeks ago. Book proposals are pretty standard affairs but are a lot of work. They describe the book, give a chapter outline, describe the audience and size of the market, note similar books, explain why you are the right person to write the book, and how you think it might be marketed. Proposals also include one or two chapters. I wrote an introduction and one chapter. The whole thing is about 15,000 words long, so it is a significant document.
Given that Creating Adam is my 10th book, I felt confident and experienced at writing book proposals. I anticipated this would be routine.
I was wrong. My agent, who has had experience getting six-figure royalty advances for his writers and knows what the publishing houses are looking for, gave my proposal a thorough review and found--how shall I put this?—"room for improvement." I have just read through his extensive review and now understand why having a literary agent is a good idea. Even though this is my tenth book, I still have much to learn.
Articles
The Guy in the Wheelchair 2007
Say it Aint So 2006
"Say it Ain't So" was a popular overview of America's ongoing hostility to evolution. It was selected for inclusion in the popular freshman reader What Matters in America by Gary Goshgarian. It is gratifying and humbling to think that college freshman are reading one of my essays as an example of good writing.
The Patent Clerk From Mount Olympus 2005
Lenses, Heresies, and the Man Who Made Them 2003
The Greatest Debate in History 2003
The Teaching of Evolution in Public Schools 2002
Cosmic Codebreaker, Pious Heretic 2002
Bottom-Up Apologist 2002
The Warden of Space and Time, Part III 2002
The Warden of Space and Time, Part II 2001
The Warden of Space and Time, Part I 2001
This three-part series on Isaac Newton was great fun to write. I think, in total word count, it is one of the longest pieces that Books & Culture ever published.
Interviews
Finding Darwin's God 2004
Bombs Without Qualms 2003
Learning About Love the Hard Way 2003
God's Funeral 1999
The Picasso of Chinese Studies 1999
A Somewhat Higher Opinion of God 1998
Book Reviews
Anti-Evolution From Dayton to Dover 2006