Steve Alten is waiting for some big news. In Alten’s case, “big” involves a seventy-six-foot-long man-eater that lives in the world’s deepest oceans and has been trying, for twelve years, to rise out of the depths and into cineplexes.

Alten is the author of Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, arguably one of the best summer potboilers in the last decade and a half. In the book, a team of deep-sea explorers accidentally bring to the surface a Carcharodon megalodon—a species of giant prehistoric shark thought to have died out about 50,000 years ago.

“I have been enthralled with this entire species,” Alten said in a phone interview from his South Florida home.

In Alten’s world, as the prehistoric seas cooled, the giant sharks gradually retreated to the deepest parts of the ocean, where geothermal vents kept the water much warmer than the water at the surface. A layer of near-freezing deep-sea water just above the geothermal zone kept the sharks from surfacing.

When in came out in 1997, Meg rocketed onto the New York Times bestseller list. The Los Angles Times called it “Jurassic Shark!” A Time magazine cover story touted it as a “cool summer read.” Disney’s Hollywood Pictures optioned the movie rights. Three sequels hit bookshelves in the twelve years since, including the most recent, Meg: Hell’s Aquarium, this past summer.

But moviegoers are still waiting for their first Meg sighting. Full Story »

“Take a walk with me,” I said.

My students, some twenty-one freshmen, followed me into the hallway. “We’re going to take a walk around the building,” I told them. “I want you to just notice things.”

With my cowboy boots clicking on the tile floors, I moseyed down the hall with the pack of students behind me.

Some of them chit-chatted with each other. Almost all of them wondered what the heck we were doing: If this class was Composition and Critical Thinking, why were we going for a stroll? Full Story »

Here’s something to mark Valentine’s Day. The late, great John Updike was asked in Esquire some years ago: How does one write a love poem? His response (no link available):

The first thing to acquire would be a rhyming dictionary. I use one bought in 1950, published by Permabooks. Its slick yellow covers have long since fallen off, but the rhymes are still there. Then you will need an anthology of love poems to see what the competition has done. You don’t want to palm off lines like “Come live with me and be my love” or “Go, lovely rose” as if they were your own, in case your loved one was an English major. Then equip yourself with a supply of heavy tinted stock–nobody likes to receive a love poem written on notebook paper with a row of torn holes along the margin. Full Story »

“To my wife, who read all the drafts of my book. I am the lucky beneficiary of not only her wise editorial comments, but her loving encouragement.”

“To my husband, whose generosity of spirit enables him to laugh at the irony that my writer’s solitude has imposed a life of solitude on him too.”

Ever notice how many volumes of poetry and prose these days are bookended by gushing dedications and acknowledgments like the fictional examples above? Writers outdo themselves in expressions of gratitude to their loved ones for their help and patience. It’s as if we’re in the midst of a golden age of support — emotional anyway — for writers. Full Story »

Stage and film star Claire Bloom and author Philip Roth took no prisoners when their 17-year relationship ended in a firestorm.

When one of the partners in a marriage is a man who’s been called “a gleeful misogynist” –- in a complimentary article, no less –- it comes as no surprise when their union is torn asunder.

Claire Bloom and Philip Roth became a couple in 1976. She was not only a classically trained actress, but her beauty rivaled that of fellow English-woman Elizabeth Taylor (who she actually beat to Richard Burton, with whom she had an affair). He, of course is the American novelist whose career ebbed and flowed, until, after bypass surgery in 1989, he devoted his whole being to writing and was been on a tear ever since. Full Story »

Writers who shaped the consciousnesses, and influenced the styles, of Scholars and Rogues.

Wendy Redal

Hermann Hesse, especially for Narcissus & Goldmund: His study of the tension between reason and emotion as told through the 14th century lives of these two protagonists has served as a backdrop for my enduring awareness of this often troubling juxtaposition — throughout culture and in my own life. I grew up as cool Narcissus — a means to cope with a childhood fraught by chaos — and have been wrestling ever since with how to handle my inner Goldmund. Full Story »

Writers who shaped the consciousnesses, and influenced the styles, of Scholars and Rogues.

Denny Wilkins

I wrote and edited news and commentary for a living for 20 years. I, as they say, “pumped out lots of copy” in two decades. That necessarily had as much of an impact on my progress and perspective as a writer as reading the well-regarded and much-honored fiction and non-fiction of others. Those people with whom we personally engage as mentor and mentee often play critical roles in our development as writers. Full Story »

Writers who shaped the consciousnesses, and influenced the styles, of Scholars and Rogues.

J.S. O’Brien

The most influential writer and book of my life didn’t influence my writing style one bit (thank God!), but he and his book changed completely changed my life. Most deeply rural, Southern kids back in the day were exposed to no ideas outside the generally accepted ones of their fiercely insular society. Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land was my first look at American social institutions and mores from outside the mainstream, and it instilled in me a voracious appetite for moving my frame of reference outside the superego to get a wider, and extremely useful, perspective. Full Story »

Writers who shaped the consciousnesses, and influenced the styles, of Scholars and Rogues.

Lex

As a reader of mostly non-fiction, with its division by subject rather than author, this is kind of a tough one for me. It forces me pretty far back, and hence sounds cliched to me…but here goes.

Conrad and Dostoevsky for their examination of the dark recess of the human psyche. Dickens for teaching me that it’s okay to laugh at starving orphans. Melville (Billy Budd) and Conrad (Heart of Darkness) have always impressed me enough to reread and reread for the admirable ability to get whole novels into very short works. I’ve been through Billy Budd looking up and writing down every word that I couldn’t define and would probably have to look words up if I read it again tomorrow; that impresses me. Moby Dick needed an editor. Full Story »

Writers who shaped the consciousnesses, and influenced the styles, of Scholars and Rogues.

Jim Booth

F. Scott Fitzgerald for his prose style –  Ernest Hemingway for his prose style — Thomas Wolfe for his prose style

Jane Austen for her prose style — Doris Lessing for her prose style — Shirley Barker for her prose style

John Lennon for his prose style — Richard Brautigan for his prose style — Thomas Pynchon for his prose style Full Story »

During Monday’s State Department press briefing, Associated Press State Department Correspondent Matthew Lee posed the most pointed question about the conflict in Gaza and the Bush administration’s position: “What’s wrong with an immediate cease-fire that doesn’t have to be sustainable and durable if, during the pause that you get from an immediate cease-fire, something longer-term can be negotiated?” Lee didn’t tread lightly either when Deputy Secretary of State Sean McCormack failed to provide a sufficient answer and continued to challenge McCormack on the same point in Tuesday’s press briefing.

Yet a funny thing happened on the way to print: the substance of these exchanges never made it into Lee’s corresponding articles. Full Story »

One-hundred and forty-six years ago today, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Emancipation Proclamation.

While Lincoln’s intent was unmistakably noble—and incredibly politically shrewd—the words of the Proclamation appear to be among the most inelegant words Lincoln ever wrote.

Although it’s frequently misconstrued as the document that freed the slaves, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free a single person. Based on Lincoln’s powers as commander in chief, the proclamation freed slaves only in areas that were in rebellion—in others words, only in the Confederacy. Lincoln had no way to enforce the proclamation except through military victories (and on January 1, 1863, his armies weren’t doing so hot). Full Story »

It takes him ninety-one pages, but Larry McMurty finally articulates the problem that plagues his newest memoir, Books.

“Here I am, thirty-four chapters into a book that I hope will interest the general or common reader,” he writes, “and yet why should these readers be interested in the fact that in 1958 or so I paid Ted Brown $7.50 for a nice copy of The Anatomy of Melancholy? How many are going to care that I visited the great Seven Gables Bookshop, or dealt with the wily L.A. dealer Max Hunley, whose little store at the corner of Rodeo Drive and Little Santa Monica in Beverly Hills is now a yogurt shop?”

McMurtry’s rhetorical question seems to lift a millstone from around his neck, because the memoir gets more readable as the book goes on. But to enjoy the lightened load, a reader has to make it to page ninety-one in the first place—which looks deceptively easy given the cavalcade of short chapters. (Page ninety-one is, indeed, the first page of chapter thirty-four.) Books with such short chapters typically fly by. Full Story »

New month, new president, new era, new Scrogue on the banner. If only Molly Ivins could have lived another 22 months. The proudly liberal Texas commentator, who died of cancer on Jan. 31, 2007 at 62, would have added so much irreverent wit to the punditsphere during an election season that took fodder to a whole new level — I can’t help but think of the fun she would have had with a moose-hunting, former beauty queen governor. She would also have had the rather twisted pleasure of seeing Shrub shrivel up in an ignominious end to one of the most debased presidencies of all time.

Ivins – populist wisecracker, incorrigible riler of conservatives, feisty foe of George Dubya Bush – was an ardent defender of democracy. And surely with the historic election of an African-American president outside the conventional boxes, she would have concurred that we were witnessing the democracy she cherished struggling back onto its wounded feet. Full Story »

For a guy who’s been dead for nearly four hundred years, it’s pretty amazing that Shakespeare is still cranking out the hits.

And I’m not talking about great productions of his classic plays. I’m not talking about recently discovered “lost manuscripts.” I’m talking brand-spanking-new plays.

That’s what John Reed has cooked up in All the World’s a Grave, a new tragedy by William Shakespeare.

With all the cleverness of Touchstone and the mischievousness of Puck, Reed has boldly reimagined the Bard by cutting, pasting, puzzling, and rearranging Shakespeare’s own words and characters into an entirely new play.

Full Story »

When David Foster Wallace climbed aboard John McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” media caravan in the early days of the 2000 presidential primary season, he hoped to understand why McCain generated so much excitement, so much attention, so much hope. In fact, Wallace was amazed by “the enormous hopes and enthusiasm [McCain’s] generating in press and voters alike.”

Much has changed in the past eight years. McCain, the maverick “anticandidate” who peddled change and hope, who raged against the Washington establishment, now is the Washington establishment. As the 2008 republican nominees, his current campaign lacks the spontaneity and access of his first bid for the White House, and “Straight Talk” has been replaced by on-message scripts written by political marketers. The hope is gone.

And Wallace is dead, victim of an apparent suicide earlier this month. Full Story »

Running and writing may be polar opposite activities.

Writing requires long sedentary hours of deep thought; running, by its very nature, typifies motion, yet most runners don’t spend their time thinking about much of anything in particular as they run.

Both activities require solitude, although a runner may race with hundreds of other entrants and a writer requires an audience.

So perhaps running and writing seem like odd bedfellows for a book, but then again, Haruki Murakami has made his reputation by stretching boundaries and asking readers to look at the world in different ways.

His latest book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, takes a different approach than his usual fiction. Running is a memoir about the two things in Murakami’s life that best define him. Murakami tries to get inside his own head to explain the appeal, and the importance, of running and how that impacts his work as a writer. “For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor,” Murakami explains. Full Story »

On Sunday, Scholars and Rogues marked one million hits since our humble blog began last year. Some fun facts:

* S&R’s first day on the Internet was 15 April 2007.

* We had 23 hits on that day.

* Michelangelo’s statue of David was the masthead image (though he’s not officially recognized as our first “Scrogue”; that dubious honor belongs to Lord Byron).

* 10 days later we had our first 1,000-hit day.

* As of midnight last night we have 1,001,852 page views.

* We’ve had almost 700,000 hits since moving to our own domain name in October 2007.

* Some of the names we mulled before settling on S&R: Babylon Ballroom, City of Rain, Cultural Compass, Digital Shepherds, enCompass, Golden Spike, Ministry of Ideological Purity, Off-World, Sanctum, Signal2Noise, ThinkWest, What Rough Beast among many others.

* Charter member Jim Booth came up with “Rogue Scholars” on 11 April 2007 and over the course of the next few days it morphed into Scholars and Rogues and became our official name.

Thanks to all of our many readers and commenters–some of whom have become members of our crew–over this first year of S&R’s life. We’ve accomplished many things so far and we still have lots to do. So hang on for the ride… you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

I’m a recent addition to the S&R line-up since my first guest appearance at the DNC, and I hope I can run with these clever, yappy dogs. I’ve been worried that I’m not enough of a pitbull – unlike Sam, whose ‘reality check’ radar functions more forcefully than mine, or Brian, whose critical slant isn’t compromised by pesky emotions. I, on the other hand, found myself inspired by the multitude of earnest political conversations buzzing around Denver last week (even while ABC reporters were getting arrested trying to unveil connections between lobbyists, big money and Dem lawmakers), and moved deeply while listening to Barack Obama energize 80,000 people inside Denver’s football stadium last Thursday night.

I felt like I’d been to church. Full Story »

Something I have always enjoyed about the US is its propensity for intensive navel-gazing. Hell, the mainstream western nations in general are all good at this, but the US has turned it into an art-form.

The agonising over Iraq started long before the US even began the war, and continues till now. There is a voluble and energetic debate as to the best way to deal with the situation. You can call the president a traitor, or even – with a nod to Bugliosi – demand that he be tried for murder.

And this is all deeply pondered, and vitriolically debated.

Unless, of course, one suggests that other nations undergo similar scrutiny. Russia, for instance. Then you get flamed to a sizzle. Writers in Russia are treated even worse. They get killed. Full Story »