I recently attended a lecture by a prominent academic who theorized that creativity was somehow connected to mental illness. She cited a number of examples that ran the gamut from Lincoln and Churchill to numerous famous writers like Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald, and artists like the posthumously acclaimed, institutionally committed painter Vincent Van Gogh.

Citing the fact that Lincoln and Churchill allegedly suffered from depression and novelists like Hemingway committed suicide, while Faulkner and Fitzgerald were alcoholics, she seemed quite positive that her theory was correct. As further evidence, she named a number of other brilliant scientists like Newton and Einstein, the latter because he had a schizophrenic son.

What began as mere disagreement with this thesis, grew into a vehement and accelerating antagonism. Boiled down to its essence, this academic spread the notion that to be truly creative you had to be off the beam or whatever the politically correct term is these days for varying degrees of mental illness.…

Read more: Does Creativity Drive People Crazy?

You hear it everywhere. The death knell of the “reader,” meaning the reader of books. None other than the great jillionaire Steve Jobs, in remarking about the future of Amazon’s Kindle, the e-book reading device recently launched, declared it would fail because “people have stopped reading.”

If one cites the obvious, the evidence is chilling. Newspaper readership is declining, meaning the paper newspaper and on-line “newspapering” has not yet taken up the financial slack. Some magazines are still healthy financially, but there is evidence that the ceiling may have been reached in that medium. Information delivery is migrating to the Internet at an ever increasing pace. It is mind boggling, unprecedented, and epochal.

I have strong doubts that Mr. Jobs was referring to informational reading, instructive reading, academic reading, current events reading, scientific reading and the like, all of which are available on the Kindle. Without the ability to read even the Apple would have remained simply the name of a fruit.…

Read more: Sometimes an “Apple” Falls Far From the Tree

Hurry Before It’s Too Late! Only 1 Week Left to Submit Your Short Story. January 15th is the deadline for submission to the Second Annual Warren Adler Short Story Contest. It is inspirational to see the numerous submissions and the high quality work exhibited by the writers. Those of you who have works in progress have one week to send in your submission to beat the deadline. See rules and submission guidelines at www.newyorkechoes.com. Five finalists will be announced shortly, and readers will vote during February for their favorite. First Place and People’s Choice will be announced in March at a “live” Second Life event. First prize is $1,000 and publication on Amazon Shorts; People’s Choice will also be published on Amazon Shorts, and all five finalists will be awarded personalized first editions of Mr. Adler’s collection, New York Echoes: Short Stories.…

Read more: Hurry to enter Second Annual Warren Adler Short Story Contest