Sitemap - 2023 - To Live and Let Die

Hunting the elusive Queho ... and a murder victim that comes back alive and well

Francis Ford Coppola's great big bowl of pasta dough

Every story needs a hero

The renegade Queho murders again?

The mystery of storytelling: Julian Friedmann's TEDxEaling Talk (with transcript)

Get out there!

Queho's 'reign of terror' begins

"Great scripts are forged in battle..."

A time with 'Silence of the Lambs' Oscar winner Ted Tally ... and a Hot Fuzz tangent

'Young woman drowned in bathtub' - the death of Mark Twain's daughter

The writer's block phantom

Rambling notes about systemic racism, then and now

The magic of Napoleon Dynamite

With a look at the excellent casting suggestions, this is it for 'The Coffee Trader' Substack ... for now!

Willie Boy, the truth, and white man's many outrageous lies

Crowdfunding: a first-rate way to put your name and craft out there - and meet people!

Without Bill Finger, Batman would have never been Batman. Finger died broke and unknown.

It's never just 'smooth sailing' - and thank goodness for that!

The unbridled imagination of uber-cantankerous author and screenwriter Harlan Ellison

Of broken promises, the 'Trail of Tears' and the disappearance of the 'Indian Territory'

Ever hear of Niven Busch?

The world's first stock exchange - and Margot Robbie in the bathtub

Gore Vidal: Literary juggernaut ... and screenwriter

About the cake, the icing and the cherry

Notes for beginning writers

After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, everyone pitched in to help

'Malkovich's Mail' - a documentary about Hollywood dreams and realities

Don't be a genre-hater

Raiders of the Lost Ark - a few script pages personally annotated by Harrison Ford

No Country for Old Men - from screenplay to novel to screenplay

Logline? Synopsis? Exposé? Treatment? Huh?

Kiel fratricide? Or was it the revenge of the Stewarts?

"Figure it out" - the David Mamet memo

The joys of first drafts

The guilty pleasure of the Matt Helm series

Is there art in screenwriting?

Being There: Life is a state of mind

Before Las Vegas, there was Searchlight

Cabaret! The fascinating life of Jay Presson Allen, adapter extraordinaire

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee!

William Peter Blatty's masterpiece (and no, it's not The Exorcist)

From screenplay to novel: How I breathed new life into my spec scripts

The bloody tale of the 'wholesale murders' at Eldorado Canyon

Stealing allowed - Robert De Niro style

The history and contributions of Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam

What do Willy Wonka and James Bond have in common?

The "horrible crime" that was, as ever so often, blamed on a "crazy Indian"

How 'Alien' was born

Diving into the Golden Age of Amsterdam

Just hanging around

Hurry up and wait!

An 1894 visit to Las Vegas, long before it was even a village

Batman vs Superman: A tangled screenplay history

"Take a sip, and then I'll tell you everything."

John Logan: Learn from the literary masters ... then start screenwriting

The Prophet, the Ghost Dance... and the Wounded Knee Massacre

In the room where it happens

Say who you are

The legendarily wronged Apache Kid (includes exclusive chapter)

The legacy of the Paiute Princess

Loglines: 25 words that can change your life

“You want me to do what!?”

From collecting dust to new life on Substack

The Coffee Trader: Synopsis and scripts