the cockeyed pessimist

It was with a heavy heart that I read, in the New York Times, of Judith Appelbaum’s death on July 25th at the age of 78. At the same time I felt bathed by recalled fondness for the boost she gave The Permanent Press titles when we began publishing 3...

Joan Baum is a recovering academic from the City University of New York, who spent 25 years teaching literature and writing. Joan has a long career as a critic and reviewer, writing for, among others, WNYC, Newsday, The Christian Science Monitor, MIT...

My reading habit was mostly self-inflicted, though heavily influenced by my father's collection of boyhood books, notably the works of Edgar Rice Boroughs, Zane Grey, Tom Swift and lots of other popular action writers of the early 20th century now lost...

Every published author will tell you that a great copy editor is a gift from God, and have horror stories about those more in Satan’s camp. I’ve had both. Now that I’m busy with the editorial process, the importance of great copy editing has become even...