I normally would not take such a risk, not thinking so much for my own well-being, but the lives of others who could be compromised, if I were to contract the virus and pass it to someone. But here I was, ready to risk it all for those I love and…myself. Both my parents turned […]
You hear the crack of the bat and see a ball sailing through the crisp spring air on Chicago’s Northside as it gets hung up in the ivy of the Wrigley outfield for a ground-rule double. With beer in hand, you think this is it.
I am excited to formally introduce the project that has been more than a decade in the making: Subterranean Mixtape. This has been a journey not only of discovery and great emotional depth but tenacity. The more than 1,000 pages of my writing that I pulled together that spans more than two decades was culled […]
Poetry has been a part of my life most of the way. While working on Subterranean Mixtape, I exhumed some of my earliest poems, and it has been a trip looking back at them. Here is one poem that I wrote in seventh grade: See Me As I Am Paint me red, Paint me blue, […]
Perhaps no other writer captured my imagination as much as Hermann Hesse did in my early twenties. Both my parents admired Hesse, and it was perhaps my rebellious spirit that caused me to eschew his work for so long. But reading Narcissus and Goldman got me quite interested in his work, and soon after I […]
Often a large part of the DNA of a writer is affected by the inputs and influences. Perhaps the most pronounced is the other writers that one has read. My journey through fiction began at a young age and continues … It can be argued that every book and, therefore every writer one has ever […]
There are many people who are looking to try the best wine that money can buy. There are others who want to try every wine in a particular region and dozens of other pursuits that drive oenophiles. What I find most exciting is searching for the best bargain wines. I like to find wines that […]
Working on Inside the Chinese Wine Industry has been quite the journey of discovery. Not only did it compel me to learn more about China, but also wine and the global wine industry. The writing of the book itself turned out to be one of the greatest challenges I have faced, and I like to […]
What Does the Future of the Wine Trade Look Like? Trump remains optimistic about the future of US-Chinese relations and says that there are only a few things missing that would lead to the kind of deal that would end the trade war. In the past couple of weeks, he said, “China wants to make […]
In the third part of this four-part series, we will focus on how the trade war affects the US wine industry in the short term and then begin to explore what the future holds for the industry if the trade war continues. Trump’s Personal Connection Donald Trump is no stranger to the wine industry. Since […]
