James Brown

Jude Prest, producer/writer/director, has optioned The L.A. Diaries and is hoping to have the script done by July to coincide with the release of my new memoir. He's a great guy, talented and smart, and I'm looking forward to working with him. Blogs? So many, as this one, seem like self-advertising, (more…)

If Jeff Bridges wins the Oscar this year, and I hope he does, as he's been nominated numerous times and overlooked again and again. But, should he win, maybe, just maybe, it'll call attention to one of his earliest films, Bad Company, in which my brother starred alongside him. And I'm hoping, maybe, just (more…)

Diana Raab has just come out with a collection of essays on writers and journaling, and how some of us use the journaling process as a way into writing stories and poems. She's assembled an excellent line-up of writers, with a great foreword from Philip Lopate. Check it out if you have time.

Almost all my writer friends are having a hard time finding homes for their work in New York, and, when they do, they're taking much smaller advances. The economy is hurting, and publishing is taking its hits as well. Trouble is, much of their problem has to do with giving out ridiculous advances to (more…)

This River is polished and done and going to bound galleys in the next sixty days or so, well in advance of the official pub date of July 2010. Between my agent, Ryan Fischer-Harbage, and Editor-in-Chief Dan Smetanka at Phoenix Books, the new memoir has only improved. Their insights and suggestions went a long way (more…)

As a recovering alcoholic-slash-addict, I've read 89 books on the subject of alcoholism and addiction, and I can say without reservation that Dirk Hanson's THE CHEMICAL CAROUSEL is one of my top five favorites. It is well researched. It is exceedingly well written. It is unbiased, yet empathetic to the plight of the addict/alcoholic, (more…)