Author: Tommy Zurhellen
-
Notes on the Rule of Three
I. Conflict Writers are taught there is magic in the number three: your play needs three acts, your joke needs two priests and a rabbi, and your storybook needs Three Little Pigs to be complete. If that book was called The Forty-Seven Little Pigs, I guess there wouldn’t be much of a story at all…
-
Armageddon, Texas: Cover and Excerpt Release
Editor’s Note: Today we release the cover of Armageddon, Texas, the third and final volume of The Messiah Trilogy (October 2014). To celebrate the cover release, we have chosen the following excerpt to share with our readers. It is an excerpt from a chapter called “Two Great Lights.” So this was what was left of…
-
Chasing the Dragons
I am walking along a wooded path that hugs the edge of one of Norway’s largest fjords, a few miles outside the city of Trondheim. This close to the Arctic Circle, there are only a few hours of daylight to see where you’re stepping, so I quicken my pace, trying to get as much trail-time…
-
The Last Book Tour, Part 3: The Last Day
This summer, Atticus author Tommy Zurhellen is driving across the country, from New York to Seattle, to read at local bookstores and libraries in support of the second book in his award-winning Messiah Trilogy, Apostle Islands. He’ll check in with us from time to time, sharing stories from the road while he tries to answer…
-
The Last Book Tour, Part One
This summer, Atticus author Tommy Zurhellen is driving across the country, from New York to Seattle, to read at local bookstores and libraries in support of the second book in his award-winning Messiah Trilogy, Apostle Islands. He’ll check in with us from time to time, sharing stories from the road while he tries to answer…
-
A Postcard from Florence: Remembering Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
This was once known as the Island of the Dead. When Giuseppe Poggi, the great architect of modern Florence, knocked down the city’s medieval walls in 1865 and replaced them with wide avenues, he left this island alone, instead choosing to build the street right around it.
-
The Wedding at Cana – An Apostle Islands Excerpt
It’s right around midnight when the booze runs out. There’s always that scary window at a party when folks are drunk enough to pick fights but not drunk enough to do everyone else a favor and just pass out. I’ve sat through enough wedding receptions to know they turn into a wake the minute something…
-
A (Class) Room With a View
I’m sitting alone on a rooftop veranda overlooking the steep cavern of the Via del Giglio, listening to a waiter downstairs at bustling Café Giotto patiently answer questions from an American couple. Okay buddy, but what exactly is this one here – chin-gee-al-ee? Seriously? Wild boar? Isn’t that like an endangered species, like bald eagles?…
-
Sequel, Part 1: An Essay About Second Chances
Last night I had the Navy Dream again. It’s my own version of that anxiety dream everyone experiences when life gets too complicated. In the Navy Dream, somehow I find myself back in the Navy, on a new ship without any friends, uniforms or gear — and most importantly, without any idea of how long…
-
Everything I Have Is Blue: Part Three of Three
You had a girlfriend back in New York. You meet her at the Bowery Poetry Club when she spills a drink in your lap and wipes it up with a beret belonging to a complete stranger. She writes songs for television shows. She is best known for a song called “Fart in Your Face” where…