Five Reasons Why I Like Valentine’s Day

by Josh Hanagarne on February 14, 2012

cadbury-egg

Cadbury Creme Egg - food of the gods

Five reasons.

This is really easy. I woke up  this morning to a gift basket with five Cadbury Creme Eggs in it, along with a bunch of jerky for me to gnaw on. In fact, I’m gnawing on some of it right now. I am that easy to please.

There are a few other reasons, however. [Read more...]

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Book Giveaway! I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb

by Josh Hanagarne on February 12, 2012

Hey everyone. I’m going to start giving away books more often. I have no idea how this happened, but for some reason I’ve got three copies of Wally Lamb’s massive book I Know This Much is True.

I liked it, but I didn’t like it enough for it to take up a square foot of space on me shelves.

So here’s what’s up: if you want it, tell me you want it in the comments. On February 20 I will put your names into a hat and then I’ll choose one. It will be the height of scientific rigor.

Then I’ll ship it to you for free if you live in the US. We’ll work it out if you live in Foreignland.

And just in case I haven’t used enough exclamation points to convince you…

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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New Topics I’ll Be Speaking About in 2012

by Josh Hanagarne on February 9, 2012

My speaking calendar is filling up for the year. It’s going to be hectic and travel-heavy, but there are certainly worse problems to have.

For those of you who would be interested in hearing me present, please check out the Speaking page to see where I’ll be in the next four months.

For those of you just getting here, who might be interested in having me present to a group, I’m expanding my list of subjects and presentations. [Read more...]

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A Very Easy Way to Improve Your Writing

Here’s a quick and easy way to improve your writing, I hope. Read it out loud. This has saved me (and my editor) a lot of headaches. You’ll be amazed, and occasionally horrified, at how things sound sometimes, even if you thought they were the apotheosis of literary majesty. This simple practice reduces the time [...]

February 8, 2012 READ MORE →

Book Review — Jared, the Subway Guy: Winning Through Losing

by Rob O’Hara Jared Fogle, the man who lost more than half his body weight by switching to a strict regiment of Subway sandwiches, has written a book. But Jared, the Subway Guy: Winning Through Losing, is not a diet book. Instead it’s the story of Jared’s life, bundled with inspirational bullets dished up like [...]

February 7, 2012 READ MORE →

Tourette’s Update

Okay, a few wonderful souls keep asking how I’m doing, so here’s the update: The Tourette’s is currently back, in a big way. The most challenging thing about this resurgence is that during my respite, all of my tic muscles and tendons withered up! The body strengthens itself and creates tissue based on whatever movements [...]

February 6, 2012 READ MORE →

Me Screwing Around with the Stronger Grip Monster Mace (gada)

A lazy Saturday afternoon in Utah. Ryan Pitts from Stronger Grip recently sent me a custom Monster Mace. The original name for this particular style is the “gada.” If you want to know more about that, then take a stroll over here to Scientific Wrestling for some history about big guys swinging things around. Because [...]

February 5, 2012 READ MORE →

All Hail the Carrot Goddess: Eating Plants by Shane Van Oosterhout

Note from Josh: Shane is becoming one of my favorite writers. If you didn’t catch it, please check out his post Life After Depression after this one. Vegan is a goofy word.  It sounds like a magical food cult where root vegetables are worshipped beneath a full moon.  All hail the carrot goddess. By definition [...]

February 3, 2012 READ MORE →

The Abominable Beast – Guest post by Gustavo Silva

This story I heard when I was younger: the story of two brothers that owned a circus. They had been traveling for a long time, carrying their show from town to town, until they found out that they were broke. The two brothers were in despair; they didn’t even have enough for the payroll which [...]

February 2, 2012 READ MORE →

How to Get Over “It’s Too Hard” and Get On With It. All of It: Guest post by Kelly Diels

by Kelly Diels A conversation with my inner lazy ass. (Ok, she’s my outer lazy ass.) Writing. Rising Up. Raising Cash. Raising Kids. Working. Working out. Losing weight. Not losing my mind while keeping it all together. These things are hard. Or, I tell myself they’re hard. Let’s talk about hard.

January 31, 2012 READ MORE →