Lev Raphael's Blog, page 53

Losing Control of My Car and My Life

In all my decades of driving, I've never had anything but a minor fender bender just minutes from my house--until last weekend when I apparently skidded off rainy I75 near Flint, Michigan, onto a grassy median and blacked out.



At least that's what I think happened. All I can remember was that one minute I was driving along and the rain had just started up and it was foggy. Then I woke up in the wide grassy median, confused. The side air bags were deployed, and I couldn't figure out at first w...

8 Dos and Don'ts When You Get a Bad Review

Don't text everyone you know that the reviewer is an absolute moron who deserves nothing but bad sex and botulism. Why? Most people won't know about the review until you tell them.



Don't make snarky remarks about this reviewer in live interviews, because your bitterness won't wreak revenge, it'll end up as an unflattering hashtag about you like #whinyauthor.



Don't take to substance abuse, stalking, or looking up all the other reviews this nimrod has done to see if yours is the worst, or otherwi...

My Glorious Grand Rapids Afternoon at ArtPrize

This afternoon I visited Grand Rapid's beautiful art museum (GRAM) for their yearly art exhibition, Art/Prize, that includes work by one of my writing students, and though I arrived somewhat frazzled, I left in a state of deep contentment verging on joy.



That's not surprising. I love museums. My parents often took me to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Modern Art when I was in elementary school. And I grew up just a few blocks away from an extraordinary complex of m...

My Afternoon at Art/Prize in Grand Rapids

This afternoon I visited Grand Rapid's beautiful art museum (GRAM) for their yearly student art exhibition, Art/Prize and though I arrived somewhat frazzled, I left in a state of deep contentment.



That's not surprising. I love museums. My parents often took me to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Modern Art when I was in elementary school. And though I was raised in a household of angry Holocaust survivors I grew up just a few blocks from an extraordinary complex of...

I'm No Longer Addicted to Giving Up Facebook!

Every year I used to bitch and moan about how much time I wasted on Facebook every single day. I'd carefully time my post, edit my posts, check who was liking my posts, check shares, check my friend's posts, check who was liking their posts, check if they were editing their posts. You get the picture.



My friends admired me for my energy. Well, some of them did. Others made fun of me. They called me a Facebook Freak. And I guess I was. I tried timing myself with a metronome, an hourglass, all k...

6 Things Authors Can Say When People Ask 'Do You Know Stephen King?'

It sounds like a specialized question, but it's not. Most authors on tour get it a lot.



For some reason, people who read a book only under duress seem to think of King as the touchstone of all things literary. If you know him, your reality as an author is verified, whether they'll ever bother to read a book of yours or not.



I've been asked this annoying question countless times by cab drivers when I'm doing book tours across the country and they discover why I'm in town. It's almost always th...

6 Things Authors Can Say When People Ask "Do You Know Stephen King?"

It sounds like a specialized question, but it's not. Most authors on tour get it a lot.



For some reason, people who read a book only under duress seem to think of King as the touchstone of all things literary. If you know him, your reality as an author is verified, whether they'll ever bother to read a book of yours or not.



I've been asked this annoying question countless times by cab drivers when I'm doing book tours across the country and they discover why I'm in town. It's almost always th...

6 Things to Say When People Ask "Do You Know Stephen King?"

It sounds like a specialized question, but it's not. Most authors on tour get it a lot.



For some reason, people who read a book only under duress seem to think of King as the touchstone of all things literary. If you know him, your reality as an author is verified, whether they'll ever bother to read a book of yours or not.



I've been asked this annoying question countless times by cab drivers when I'm doing book tours across the country and they discover why I'm in town. It's almost always th...

Not So Crazy About Gone Girl?

A mystery reading friend recently asked me what I thought about Kathy Reichs' Déja Dead.



Why bring up a book that came out sixteen years ago? Because a line from my Detroit Free Press review was in the paperback with other review quotes: "As good as Patricia Cornwell at her best."



So my friend wanted to know what I thought, since it was being read by her book group. I told her I couldn't remember. I reviewed hundreds of books for the Detroit Free Press back when I was their crime fiction colum...

In Love With David Bowie

David Bowie wasn't always a super star.



That's right. Despite all the attention being paid to the David Bowie Is exhibition at MCA Chicago, when he flashed across TV screens in my college days he was just a cult figure. And a figure of fun. Ziggy Stardust was bizarre-looking to the talking heads on local news in New York City and they mocked him when he played at local venues.



I thought he was fascinating and magnetic, but I kept that to myself.



His only radio hits were "Space Oddity" and "Rebel...