Shakespeare – Michael A. Kahn

T.Rex, The White Lotus, & Chekhov’s Gun: Why Truth Is Stranger than Fiction

Posted on April 11, 2025April 12, 2025 by Michael Kahn

The challenge facing every author of a novel or short story is best captured in a cartoon I saw years ago: the writer is seated at his computer, and on the wall behind him is a sign reading: “10 Days without a Contrived Coincidence to Forward the Plot!” This universal author’s dilemma was perfectly captured…

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Legal Thrillers for Literary Snobs

Posted on December 13, 2024December 14, 2024 by Michael Kahn

I was talking with a friend about the unfortunate tendency of readers, critics, and publishers to shoehorn every work of fiction into a specific genre, be it romance or science fiction or mystery or historical fiction–as can be confirmed by a stroll through your local bookstore, where the aisles are labeled by the genre they…

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Flipping Edmund Wilson the Bird: When Does a Work of Literature Qualify as–egads!–a Mystery?

Posted on October 1, 2022 by Michael Kahn

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of one of the leading literary critics of his time, Edmund Wilson. While many of his readers, especially in academia, admire him as the author of such influential works as To the Finland Station (1940) and Patriotic Gore (1962), for this humble scribe, whose books are…

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Jay Gatsby and Notorious B.I.G.: A Match Made in Baseball Heaven

Posted on May 8, 2021May 10, 2021 by Michael Kahn

Ah, baseball season has arrived! And with it, the joy of the walk-up song. For the true baseball fans among us, name a favorite player and you can name his walk-up song. Same for your team’s closer (whose walk-up song is known as the “entrance song”). Including even those greats who’ve retired. What Yankees fan, when…

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Cheerful Words of Wisdom from Falstaff

Posted on February 9, 2020February 11, 2020 by Michael Kahn

During these cold dark days of winter, with ice and sleet in the forecast and Spring more than a month away, we could all use some cheering up. For Ishmael, in the opening paragraph of Moby Dick, that meant it was “high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” For me, it…

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Awesome Role Models for Rachel Gold–and All Women

Posted on April 22, 2019May 1, 2019 by Michael Kahn

As I would imagine is true for most authors, by the time we write that very first paragraph of our very first novel, our brains have absorbed massive amounts of fiction in the form of novels, comic books, fairy tales, short stories, motion pictures, and television shows. And this huge warehouse of information will impact…

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A Truly Challenging Question for Me (and You)

Posted on August 1, 2017February 16, 2019 by Michael Kahn

I received an email from the folks at Goodreads asking for me to answer the following question: “If you could travel to any fictional book world, where would you go and what would you do there?” What a great question! And one you should ask yourself as well. Here’s how I answered it: I started…

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In Praise of the Lowly Weed

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Michael Kahn

If, like me, you have a lawn out your front door, then taking a Word Association Test using “dandelion” will likely trigger an array of negative terms, including perhaps Weed B Gon and other chemical warfare products offered by Scotts, Ortho, and Monsanto. Thus imagine my surprise at the nearly childlike wonder I experienced earlier this…

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Top 10 Baseball Walk-Up Songs in Literature

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Michael Kahn

For the true baseball fans among us, name a favorite player and you can name his walk-up song. Same for your team’s closer (whose walk-up song is known as the “entrance song”). For the uninitiated, a walk-up song is that heavy metal, hip hop, or country tune that blares throughout the stadium as the player…

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Untold Tales of Wild and Crazy Love

Posted on September 15, 2013October 23, 2013 by Michael Kahn

Love stories have generated mountains of literary analysis over the years. From Tristan & Isolde to Romeo & Juliet to Elizabeth Bennett & Mr. Darcy to Anastasia Steel & Christian Grey, the ins-and-outs (pun sort of intended) of the amorous relationships between fictional characters have been probed (guilty again) from every angle (ok, enough) by scholars…

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