David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 182
February 15, 2017
Dublin-based Into the Void Magazine has accepted my poem “Conservation of Matter and Energy”
Dublin-based Into the Void Magazine has accepted my poem “Conservation of Matter and Energy” for publication in its April issue.
February 14, 2017
My Chapbook is Also Available at the Germana Bookstore in Fredericksburg
My prize-winning chapbook Finite to Fail is also available for $6 at the Germanna Community College Bookstore at the Fredericksburg Area Campus: 10000 Germanna Pointe Dr., Fredericksburg VA 22407 Phone: 540-891-3002.
February 10, 2017
3 of my poems in Anthology: Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands
Three of my poems are included in Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands from Shabda Press, available soon from:
Barnes and Noble
February 9, 2017
My New Chapbook is Officially Released
Official Release of my new Chapbook: Finite to Fail (Poems After Dickinson) – Now in Stock
February 6, 2017
Join me and 4 Other Authors
“Feb. 28, 7–8 p.m., Headquarters Library, 1201 Caroline St., Fredericksburg. “Getting Your First Book Published—A Germanna Community College Authors Panel Discussion,” will feature a panel of authors, including Howard Owen, Jim Hall, Cory McLauchlin, Dr. David Sam and Rick Pullen. The panel discussion and Q&A will be followed by a book signing.”
February 4, 2017
My award-winning chapbook “Finite to Fail” is now available at GFT Press
My award-winning chapbook “Finite to Fail” is now available at GFT Press. If you purchase a copy, please review it on Goodreads.
January 29, 2017
What burns more than truth?
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A novel of an alternative future, a dystopia, and science fiction/speculative novel that could not happen here. Right? What if our electronic media encouraged our desire to be happy by not facing hard truths? What if more and more of us were pleased to be entertained and not challenged? What if our media became our reality and we ignored the natural landscape and starscape and stayed within four talking glimmering walls? And what if our politicians and leaders knew that, by encouraging all of this they, could keep power and do what they wanted with the full support of our ignorance? Would there come a time when reading deeply was banned? When thinking certain thoughts was outlawed? Where words were to be stripped of all but their most innocuous definitions? Surely this could not happen here? Right?
Sunlight
If a man is to shed the light of the sun upon other men, he must first of all have it within himself. -Romain Rolland
January 28, 2017
The easy answer…
“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem. Neat, plausible, and wrong.” H. L. Mencken
Read and reread these books
Why Orwell’s ‘1984’ matters so much now – from the Washington Post, Book World editor Ron Charles http://wapo.st/2kk7wVY
Orwell warned us that “already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered.” And further, he saw that “the horrors of emotional nationalism and a tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth” leads democracy to turn into authoritarianism.
For decades many in the academy have argued that truth is relative. Now this has infected our politically conservative as well as liberal discourse.
Orwell’s hope was that those who cared about language and the right word would lead us back to a healthy polity by first fighting the “decay of language” that leads to doublespeak and “aletrnative facts.” Those of us who work the craft of language have this duty: to use words rightly and well and exactly in search for truths that may be elusive but are truly out there and in here.
