Author Archives: chuckmall

About chuckmall

Fiction and food writer. Author of "The Owl Motel: And Other Places Where You Are Not Welcome."

Middle-Grader Road Grading

Posted on February 17, 2020

Why are middle-grade books my chosen writing genre? I’ve written middle-grade and young-adult fiction, and picture books (which I’ve tried to write; but can’t do it well). Somehow middle-grade plots, characters, and ideas are what populate my mind.  Perhaps it’s … Continue reading →

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The Useful Cage

Posted on February 2, 2020

How the Storytelling Format Can Limit a Fictional Narrative Strategically As a writer who has created almost all of his fiction in third person limited, using a standard narrative format, I’m always exploring how established novelists use or misuse format … Continue reading →

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Love, a Dream, and a Theft

Posted on March 14, 2018

My Secret Relationship with Ursula K. Le Guin’s Mother by Chuck Mallory To understand, you need to know I grew up in a very small town in the 1960s. My mother was able to put me in first grade at … Continue reading →

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Laurapalooza

Posted on August 26, 2017

(Simultaneously published on Medium.com/chuckmall) “Half-Pint” is Gaining a Jesus-like Iconography Laura Ingalls Wilder and a Hmong woman on a mural in Walnut Creek MN. Did this ever happen? Doesn’t matter. Just believe.   The first thing that stands out from all … Continue reading →

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It’s Time to Prove Ourselves

Posted on June 2, 2017

A young journalist’s insight on Gamergate when it occurred in 2014. Continue reading →

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When Your Own Writing Spooks You

Posted on March 17, 2017

Clean the basement. That’s how you find pieces of writing you never remember writing. I found one, and am going to throw it away. It isn’t bad as much as it is strange. In 2008 I took a stream-of-consciousness writing … Continue reading →

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Cracked Open

Posted on September 8, 2016

You can see I haven’t been the most regular blogger here. But I had a reason for pausing lately. On October 22, 2015, my 22-year-old son was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Seven months later he passed away, after fighting hard … Continue reading →

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