Last month, I wrote about the impending demise of my graduate Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. While Dean Steve Kay has classified the move strictly as a “business decision,” no further clarification has been provided, which is why some MPW students and alumni started a letter-writing campaign to convince […]
Introducing My Personal Canon
In a world where information expands at an exponential rate, and more books than a person can ever hope to read have been written, it is a futile errand to try to learn everything. I agree that we must expose ourselves to a broad body of knowledge, but this strategy should be used to find […]
“The War of the Worlds”
I have one Halloween tradition that I’ve engaged in every year since college, which is to listen to Orson Welles’ 1938 radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds,” about a Martian invasion of New Jersey. The show is a wonderful bit of entertainment and a stellar example of classic fiction adapted for the auditory […]
What Would You Like to Read?
Last month I started Fiction Fridays, a series in which I post a new short story on the blog each week. Who knew that writing a story every seven days, in addition to a novel and other posts, took so much time? But in all seriousness, I’ve enjoyed the challenge—I’m up to #6 so far—and […]
Daniel Gardina Newsletter, First Edition
Greetings, and welcome to the inaugural issue of the Daniel Gardina newsletter. I wish to thank you for subscribing to these communications where I will pass along monthly updates as well as advance information of future publications, events, and giveaways. The past few months have been exciting in that my entire approach to publishing has […]
Eulogy for My Father
People often joke about the impracticality of an English degree. After all, our major doesn’t teach us accounting or engineering or law or any of those hard skills the job market values. Even I poke fun a bit—always with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, of course—because I know our myriad of soft skills […]
My First Interview
This week marks a big step forward in my writing career: I sat for my first interview. That’s right. Yours truly was the subject for an eighth grade honors English student researching her future career as a novelist. Alexandra’s questions were elegant and informed, thoughtful and thorough; so she has set the bar for my […]
Priority #1
Since my 2011 annual review was longer than my average posts, I’m going to keep this one short. I love to talk about books, movies, and writing. Today, however, I’m revising a large chunk of my new novel, and there’s no way around it: the writing process itself is the best of all worlds. I’d […]
Ten Years Later
I was in Los Angeles on September 11, 2001, the city where several planes were supposed to arrive but never did. My memories of that day are still as vivid as they were ten years ago—a third of my life ago. Being nineteen and a freshman in college, your world is supposed to change. It’s […]