In Swim at Your Own Risk , a short story I published earlier this year, 8-year-old Tammy tells her best friend that six months after her grandfather died, “Grandma died of a broken heart.”  While the narrator thinks he knows better, there is some medical basis for her claim. Napoleon's Farewell to Josephine (circa 1891) by Laslett John Pott.   Broken Heart Syndrome, also called Takotsubo syndrome or stress cardiomyopathy, is a rare but real condition that is thought to affect

How many basic plots are there in fiction? Writers and academics, have posited that there are  anywhere between 3 and 36.* The relative...

At the very last possible moment – the show’s run ended on September 14—I had the pleasure of attending a performance of the Public...