This newsletter was sent to all of the subscribers on Jim’s list (2,962) on Friday, Dec. 21, 2018. The Christmas holiday season, Hannukah, the winter solstice, the beginning of the college football bowl season — they all collide for the next couple of weeks, provoking an increase in shopping, singing, television watching, and • Read More »
Archives: Bret Harte
Bret Harte’s big newspaper scoop
December 12, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: fiction, journalism, journalists, writers.
Before he became famous for his wild tales of the then New West, Bret Harte was a journalist and had broken one of the biggest stories of the era in pre-Civil War California. Born in 1836 in Albany, New York, Harte moved to California with his family when he was a teenager. He worked at • Read More »
Bret Harte: object of Mark Twain’s praise and derision
December 3, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: journalism, writers, writing.
Bret Harte probably deserves a higher station than the one he occupies in the pantheon of American letters. A big part of the reason he doesn’t have it lies with his one-time friend, Mark Twain. Twain had known Harte from their days in the West when Harte achieved national fame in writing about the tall • Read More »
The father of modern caricature, bitterness among literary lights, and a view of personal technology: newsletter, Nov. 30, 2018
December 3, 2018 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: newsletter.
This newsletter was sent to all of the subscribers on Jim’s list (2,984) on Friday, Nov. 30, 2018. The theme of writing — good writing, I hope — permeates all of my newsletters, but this week you may notice another: caricature. I have tried this art form from time to time with varying degrees • Read More »