Writer

Imagine the daughter of a prominent Baltimore family climbing a high flagpole during a wild party at a staid suburban country club, or, at another party, the son of a well-known local physician flinging the contents of a highball glass in the face of a man he did not like.Unimaginable in Baltimore? Of course. Unbelievable at the Schuylkill Country Club at Pottsville, Pa.? Well, maybe. If such things did occur, they should not be mentioned in journalism nor in journalistic-type novel-writing, thought the people of Pottsville.

On paper, Lisa Scottoline is a little intimidating. She's got more than 30 million copies in print of her books, including 20 best-selling novels. She writes a weekly column, with her daughter, for The Philadelphia Inquirer. She's a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and taught a class at the latter called "Justice and Fiction. " But ask her about any connections she might have to Baltimore, where she'll be visiting May 20 as a featured author in the Baltimore Sun Book Club, and you'll quickly discover her self-deprecating sense of humor.

Last week, when I posted about training oneself to be an editor , someone commented on Facebook: " I'm curious, does any part of editor training involve breaking it to people gently? I would be surprised if it did, but I think that would be the hard part of editing, handing/sending back the document without making the writer want to quit writing. " Writer and editor experience an odd intimacy. Much as professionals school themselves to think that the text is an artifact, a product rather than an extension of the self, that text is still a personal expression.

I am writing response to the letter writer who stated that the policy of forcing banks to give loans to people who could not afford them was pushed by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd ("Stop blaming Bush," May 1). The housing bubble burst in 2006-2007. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010, way after the financial mess had started. The writer also thinks that the Democrats were ruining the economy.

Editor: I see where Wendy Sawyer of the county Democratic committee has the temerity to suggest that, because her party maintains its hegemony in Annapolis, the Republicans elected by the citizens of Harford County to represent them should just abandon their principles and bow to the overlords. To this I politely say, fuhgeddaboutit! What really needs to happen is that Republicans need to take territory in every place the Democrats just gerrymandered to protect the hegemony. But until the voters of Baltimore City, Prince Georges County and Montgomery County get brains and stop sucking up the stuff being put out by the Democrats, Maryland is still in slavery.

The Sun of Howard County is looking for a freelance writer to contribute articles for its education page. Please send resumes to Bureau Chief Mark Bomster at: The Baltimore Sun 30 Corporate Center, Suite 820 10440 Little Patuxent Parkway Columbia 21044

Catherine Pugh has a master's in business administration from Morgan State University. She has worked at Equitable Trust, the Mayor's Office, and the Council for Equal Business Opportunities. She operated The African-American News and World Report, a weekly newspaper. She has been a radio-TV commentator and reporter, and has written for several DTC publications. She is the former director of Strayer Business College. She now heads her own public relations and marketing firm.Eric Addison is a free-lance writer.

William J. Evitts, a noted writer, editor and historian who was a former college professor, died Dec. 14 of pancreatic cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. He was 68. The son of a U.S. Department of Labor official and a homemaker, Dr. Evitts was born in Chicago and raised in Arlington, Va., where he graduated from Washington and Lee High School. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1964 from the Johns Hopkins University and was a Thomas Jefferson Fellow at the University of Virginia, where he earned a master's degree in 1966.

Sharon VanDyke's phone rang Monday afternoon, but after quickly dispensing with the call, she said, sadly, "Well, it wasn't Matthew. " The wait continues for the retired principal, who has searched for the past five months for her son, a 32-year-old writer and photographer who went to Libya to chronicle the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi but is believed to have been imprisoned with rebel forces. Now, with those insurgents on the brink of toppling Gadhafi, VanDyke is bracing for whatever that means for her son. "I've been more worried in the last 24 to 48 hours than ever," she said Monday, after a mostly sleepless several days of monitoring the events in Libya from her South Baltimore rowhouse.

When it comes to books, I guess you could call me a voracious listener. I have been commuting about an hour to and from work for more than 30 years, and during that time I bet I've listened to a couple of thousand books. First on tape, now on compact discs. If you had to sit in traffic that long every day - and it is worst on a Friday in summer, when everyone is trying to cross the Bay Bridge - you'd listen to anything that might distract you, too. And I have delved into a wide range of titles, from history to historical fiction to murder mysteries to true crime.

The following letter was sent regarding the article written by Bryna Zumer and is published with the consent of the writer. I just want to take this opportunity to acknowledge with heartfelt appreciation that I and my family feel for the wonderful article you wrote regarding Joshua's case. So many people have told me that your article touched them so much and brought tears to them. I am so thankful that you took your time to come and sit there and wait as we saw the court system has their own agenda and schedule.

David Poyer is a retired naval officer, and most of the 34 thrillers that he's written draw on his experience serving in the waters of the Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific, Caribbean and Persian Gulf. So it was inevitable that at some point he'd take on the whale of all tales, "Moby Dick. " But try as Poyer might, he couldn't figure out how to write the sequel to Herman Melville's great American novel. Then one day, while the 63-year-old Poyer was teaching a creative writing course at Pennsylvania's Wilkes University, the solution came to him in a flash: "When I'm brainstorming with students, my brain doubles its IQ after a short period of time from my usually reptilian torpor at home," the 63-year-old Poyer said in a telephone interview.

Loyal readers of The Sun's opinion section may have felt a twinge of name recognition at the news of a 50-year-old Lutherville physician accidentally struck and seriously injured by an SUV on northbound North Charles Street Thursday morning. That might be because the pedestrian involved was a familiar name on these pages - Dr. Theodore "Ted" Houk. If Dr. Houk had walked into an editorial board meeting last week, it's doubtful anyone would have recognized him on sight. But as a writer of letters to the editor, he enjoys a modest form of celebrity in our offices.

“Attention, attention … the mic is now open.” It is only fitting that Derrick Weston Brown begins his presentation at local high schools with an original poem beckoning “all poets and lovers of the word.” “Poetry is for everybody,” Brown, 36, tells the students at Mt. Hebron High School in Ellicott City. “Everyone is born a poet, but society takes that away.” As the writer-in-residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo), Brown's goal is to nurture young poets in the area.

Maryland has to settle for the NIT, Cyprus is thinking about taxing bank deposits, and it turns out that your Amazon bestseller won't actually make you rich. Welcome to your post-weekend trends report for Monday, March 18, 2013. An author who managed to briefly have a best-selling book on Amazon last summer has debunked the idea that he's rolling in seven figures -- or even six -- to the fascination of his audience on Salon and Digg. Not much to put in the bank. Meanwhile, banks in Cyprus are getting nervous about that country's plans to tax their account holders.

Baltimore may not be Hollywood East, but once again, the Oscars include a distinctly Bawlamer element. Craig Bartholomew Strydom, writer of the Oscar-winning documentary "Searching for Sugar Man," lived in Baltimore until last year. Read about his involvement with the film here . With some luck, maybe he'll return to Baltimore for his next project? Perhaps a documentary on Frank Zappa? Now there's a documentary that needs to be done...  

New York Times best-selling author George Saunders will headline the 10 t h annual CityLit Festival this Spring. Saunders, the recipient of a MacArthur Award Fellowship, commonly known as a "genius" grant, has written four short story collections. The most recent, "Tenth of December," was reviewed this weekend in the New York Times' Sunday book review. Critic Gregory Cowles described him as "one of the most gifted, wickedly entertaining story writers around. " Saunders will read from his collection at the Enoch Pratt Free Library 's Central branch on April 13. Other well-known writers who have been featured in previous years at the annual book-lovers festival include Pulitzer Prize winning author Edward P. Jones; Laura Lippman, creator of the fictional private investigator Tess Monaghan, and "Sex and the City" author Candace Bushnell.