Jeff O'Handley, Author

Jeff O'Handley

The Doubting Writer Finds His Voice

Writing and…Cold Cuts?

Last week, we picked up some cold cuts at the deli counter at the supermarket. Ham. Turkey breast. A little Swiss cheese. Tasty stuff. The ham was perfect, thin sheets you could almost see through. The turkey, the same, at least when the clerk held up a slice for me to look at an approve. […]

“The Doctor is a–“

In 1974, Mel Brooks released Blazing Saddles, which is at once a brilliant and intelligent satire of racism and a typical, infantile Brooks film. In the movie, the Attorney General of some unknown state tries to force the residents of a town to sell their land cheap in order to build a railroad through it. […]

Put a Bow on it

Yesterday (Sunday, the 16th), at pretty much high noon, I pushed back from the computer, the final chords of the Grateful Dead’s spirited-but-sloppy “Scarlet Begonias” first set closer from July 16, 1976 still ringing in my ears, and said, “Finished.” The latest WiP had been completed. Not finished finished, mind you. In early evening I […]

Thoughts on the MOOC (Part II)

Well, look at that, me delivering on a promised post! I even went to the extraordinary step of pre-writing a good portion of this post; still, it’s just past six a.m. on a Monday and my coffee’s not quite ready yet, so there’s no guarantee of actual coherence here. When I wrote about this previously, […]

The Reading List, 2017 (Part II)

Happy Independence Day (early) for my American readers! Happy Canada Day (late) for my Canadian readers! And happy [insert appropriate holiday here] for my [insert appropriate nationality, ethnicity, religion, etc. here] readers! Whew, I think I covered it. Last week, I wrote about the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) I’m in, and the promise to […]