One is from The New Yorker: “Creativity Creep” (It’s not a great title, but the article makes interesting points about how “creativity” is increasingly valued by what it produces — and these days in terms of what it can produce that people will want to buy. As a writer who writes but doesn’t seek to make money from it, this is always an interesting topic to me.)

The other link is from my novel, U-town. I’ve been thinking about funerals, and I wanted to link to the funeral that I wrote about, a long scene that still pleases me. This is smack in the middle of a very long novel, and there are a ton of characters, so it will probably be pretty thick going, but I wanted to post the link in case anybody would want to peek in.

To set the scene, Marshall (assistant to Jan Sleet, who was not invited — she’s about the only significant character who won’t be there) is going to pick up his friend Vicki, who is going to the funeral with him. Vicki works in a club called The Quarter, so he’s going to meet her there. The funeral is at midnight, so the club is closing at 11:30pm, because all the regular clientele will be at the funeral anyway.

The funeral is for Carl, who was the drummer in a band called Kingdom Come, and Jenny, who was the girlfriend of the guitarist in the band. The funeral is being put on by a local motorcycle gang called The Jinx.