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Adios, Gary Reilly
Gary Reilly, The Novel Man My friend Gary Reilly passed away a few days back. A damn shame on a personal level, of course—he was brilliant, irascible, funny, and what my mother would have called “peculiar” (a word she always applied with affection). We were always glad to see each other, but never had that warm, unconditional type of friendship that Oprah talks about. Gary operated on his own wavelength, a channel you were welcome to tune in to, but he wasn’t about to change his frequency for your convenience. Gary’s death is a damn shame on another level.Read More
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Adios, John Updike
I just read that John Updike passed on today at age 76. I’ll always be grateful to him for his short story “A & P,” in which the cash register makes a little song: “Hello (bing) there, you (gung) hap-py pee-pul (splat)!—the splat being the drawer flying out.” Soon after relating this fact, the narrator, a young kid named Sammy, quits his job as a cashier because his boss, Lengel, had embarrassed a small group of beautiful girls (in particular one whom Sammy calls Queenie), who’d stopped in to pick up a jar of Fancy Herring Snacks.Read More
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
