The bad guys are out to get you – do you give up or keep fighting? In a John Grisham story the answer is obvious: no matter what they are up against, his characters never give up. It turns out, however, the only thing more persistent than a John Grisham character is John Grisham himself.

Today, John Grisham’s books have sold hundreds of millions of copies. Long known for legal thrillers that dominate the adult reading market, he’s more recently  branched out with a bestselling ‘kid lawyer’ series for school children.But before any of that happened, John Grisham heard one word, and he heard it repeatedly.

That word was ‘No.’

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​Had fun talking about Jaws, football, poetry and finding solutions to daunting problems with Matt Townsend.

One of the best parts of writing a book is the wide array of folks you come in contact with as you talk about your book. Here's my conversation with a business radio station based in Kuala Lumpur.

"There’s very little of the forced cheerfulness that can bring up your breakfast with a single heave," says The Daily Mail reviewer about It's Not About the Shark. CLICK FOR MORE.

Bud Meyer believed in bottomless, all-out effort with the fervor of a preacher. Hard work, he said, solves every problem.

Bud Meyer applied that philosophy to his work as a chemical engineer and to the upbringing of his children, including his son Urban.

When Urban Meyer disappointed his father by striking out in a high school baseball game, Bud told him that he was unwelcome in the family car. So Urban Meyer walked home. It was ten miles away. CLICK FOR MORE.

“The Christmas Song” is literally the most played Christmas song ever. The song paints a picture in words and music – “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Jack Frost nipping at your nose” – of an idyllic holiday season suffused with an almost magical glow. 

Where was the song written? Seems like it should have been written in some picture postcard perfect Vermont village. Actually, it was written in Toluca Lake, California. CLICK FOR MORE.

Most of us are well-practiced -- if inadvertent -- mimics. Embed us within a group of coworkers, and in short order we will mimic our colleagues’ tendencies.* If they don’t like their jobs, we won’t much care for ours. If they come into work a few minutes late, we’ll come in a few minutes late. If they steal office supplies, we’ll steal office supplies.

Couple our gift for mimicry with the daily pressures to do what’s required of us in a given day, and we will quite naturally spend nearly all our time doing ordinary things in the ordinary way. CLICK FOR MORE