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Margerumalia – Changes

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – September 11, 2026

PHOTO: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Everything changed on 9/11 twenty-five years ago today.

My wife called me into the bedroom to see a New York building burning on TV. How did the fire start? Has everyone gotten to safety? Isn’t that one of the twin towers? So many questions unanswered on the newscast.

Then a plane plowed into the second tower. We quickly rushed our four-year-old daughter out of the room to get her ready for school. What was happening?

I don’t have to tell you, of course, you’ll be swamped today by people’s memories and memorials, Thousands of people died that day. My little family was watching it all from a distance in Wisconsin.

I spent most of the day at Carthage College preoccupied with my classes, grading homework and working on the play I was directing. When I went to acting class, I saw Matt who had recently signed up for the army to get his schooling paid for. I asked him if he had been called. Not yet, he replied. The students chose not to go ahead with class so they could spend time on other things. We all wished Matt well and went our separate ways.

I did hear from Matt later that year. He sent me a card from boot camp. He didn’t have much to say.

TTFN

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I’m not writing much this week because my spare time has been taken up with details and decisions about the design of Verses Versus Curses, my book of children’s poetry I told you about two weeks ago. 

We’re down to the little but important issues like the choice of title font and the pagination inside the book. For example, we don’t want the reader to have to flip pages back and forth to see the poem and the illustration, we want the reader to see them both at once on facing pages.

I’m looking forward to showing you more soon!

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – Dolly Parton Reflections

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – September 4, 2026

PHOTO: NBC

When I was twenty I had little interest in Dolly Parton, her music was too twangy, her costumes were too glittery, and her chest size was too, too big.

That was the year 9 to 5 came out. 

I respected Jane Fonda for her superb acting and I thought Lily Tomlin was hilarious, having grown up watching her on Laugh-In. Okay, so what was Dolly Parton doing in this movie? She probably got in it by writing the title song. Well I guess I can put up with her if she doesn’t have too much screen time.

She won me over playing a straightforward domestic scene with Jeffrey Douglas Thomas as her husband. She wore a simple long T-shirt, without extravagant make-up or a beehive hairdo, and she was real. It was a bedroom scene but she was discussing her boss at work like any other working woman with such honesty and truth that I completely changed my opinion about her.

She became a real person to me in that moment, not just a punchline in a Tonight Show monologue.

Since then, my opinion of her climbed ever higher.

Dolly Parton’s singing was worth listening to, even if it was country music. Her stories about growing up in the hills of Tennessee were all genuine, and her work for charity, her generosity, and her desire to leave the world a better place than when she arrived were all sincere. 

She deserves all the praise and love she’s been receiving.

“If I hadn’t been a girl, I’d have been a drag queen.” – Dolly Parton

The LGBTQ+ crowd adore Dolly for just loving and accepting them. How very simple and profound that is.

I had my drag experience when I was in a musical called The Perfect People of Pepper Street. I played a man who pretended to be his own sister when he needed to be more assertive. He was Dell, she was Delilah.

I felt awkward dressing as Delilah, but I had seen the originator of the role do an amazing job and decided to rise to the challenge. The picture below is of me exiting the dressing room after a quick change. Someone called my name, I turned, and the camera flashed.

Yes, complete with Dolly Parton sized boobs.

I’ll never forget a song from the show called “My Old Friend.” Three men sang the song and my part was a soprano falsetto that I sang as Delilah. At the end of the song I took the high note of the final chord and would hear gasps from the audience when it came out sweetly and purely.

It taught me something about what I could do if—like Dell—I embraced my feminine side.

Powerful stuff.

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – A Sneak Peek

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 28, 2026

Screenshot

I’m excited to share some of the pages of my upcoming book of children’s poetry. It’s called Verses Versus Curses, which is also the name of the first poem in the book.

I call it a book of poems for the young and for the young at heart.

I like to imagine a parent or grandparent reading with a child, enjoying the poems together and laughing over some play on words or talking about the characters in the illustrations.

My favorite comment about my middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, was when a parent told me that her daughter asked how soon they would visit Grandma so she could read “the museum book” to her again. Warms my heart.

I’m thinking her Grandma is a good at reading out loud, too!

This book will be aimed at a younger audience than my middle grade novel, perhaps late elementary school age if the child is reading for themselves. Younger if an adult is reading to them.

I discovered the illustrator, Andrea Benko, when I created my web page on WordPress and decided to follow other creative types on the platform. Her illustrations were as playful as my verses and had a variety of characters, mostly animals, but sometimes something unexpected. She recently used a watermelon slice as a character, complete with a classically shaped mustache.

Not only that, she knows how to use the technology to lay everything out in Canva, asking for my input for her ideas. Most of the time my comments are along the lines of “keep up the good work” but once in a while we go back and forth with ideas until we’ve got it right. I love the collaboration!

We talk by email and through the comments section in Canva which is a good thing because she’s in Europe and there’s a six hour time lag between us. Modern technology has its benefits!

Here’s another short poem she illustrated:

It was Andrea’s idea to separate the four lines of the poem into four squares. I’d never thought of that and I immediately applauded her choice.

We’re aiming for a completion date of about September 1st in order to submit it to the publisher to get it printed for the holidays. If you’re looking for a unique gift for someone you know, add this book to your list of possibilities. It is a gift that’ll keep on giving when it’s read, re-read, and read again.

I know. I had a book of funny poems that I got in elementary school and I wore out the pages by going through it time and time again.

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – Social Prescribing

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 21, 2026

Looks kind of intimidating all in caps with red drop shadows like that, but it’s quite the opposite. It’s the prescription for better health through “social connection and community-based activity.” 

I heard about social prescribing through a story on the PBS News Hour podcast and it made me think about how much of it is the opposite of our experiences with social media.

This comes naturally to me, but presents a challenge to others. For me, the solitary task of writing is much farther outside wheelhouse than the prescription to make social connections and get involved in community-based activity. Some of the key prescriptions for better health—both mental and physical—are nature, movement, the arts, service and connection.

I walk every day through the woods. I teach acting, direct plays, write plays, poems, and stories. I volunteer to help out at my public library. And the subbing I do at my local Jr/Sr High School is part payment and part service.

Connection? Oh, yes, theatre is always a group effort and I love the connections I make there. Two writing groups and a monthly lunch gathering at the co-working studio have fostered my connections as well.

Nature AND Connection? I have so many dog friends who welcome my attention and wag their tails enthusiastically as I greet them each by name. I even know the names of some of their humans!

Here’s Lana, who likes to run at me full tilt from fifty yards away!

From what I’ve read on socialprescribingusa.com, these kind of activities are proven to stimulate better mental health and physical health, and they have the data to back it up. I’ve also met many people for whom these prescriptions are fear-filled and triggering. They need to get their prescriptions in smaller doses. 

The introvert may not be keen about the idea of joining the ranks of a theatre company, but maybe they enjoy playing the guitar or a piano. They can do that alone or they can get together with one other person and play together. The introverts I’ve met are usually fine with one-on-one interaction.

And one doesn’t need to visit a kennel of excitable dogs to experience the love of one dog. In fact, people with therapy dogs are siphoning off some of their anxiety through the service animal. That’s a social prescription.

So much rage and fear is jammed into our heads through social media that a quiet calm conversation with another person has been proven to reduce blood pressure, calm the flight-or-flight response, and deepen breathing. If that’s the purpose of the prescription then I’m all for it.

My wife and I returned to watching episodes of Ted Lasso recently and I felt myself laughing with good humor instead of experiencing the anxiety-ridden laughter of so many other comedies.

Please treat yourself kindly and embrace the resulting benefits.

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – Return of the Kitty Mamas

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 10, 2026

OOPS! I accidentally tapped on a button that sent out my Friday morning newsletter on Monday afternoon. My bad.

On the other hand, this gave me the chance to update you on the ongoing saga of the Kitty Mamas. Which hadn’t hadn’t happened yet. So this gives me a chance to bring you up to date. 

First of all we caught the last of Tabitha’s litter about three weeks ago. Here’s a picture of the final member of her brood:

Looking pretty frightened, I know. We called her BabyTab because she was her mother’s Mini Me.

Tabitha’s accustomed to us taking her kittens when she ready to “push them out of the nest” so she didn’t even stick around to see it.

Rocket, on the other hand, was wide-eyed when I brought Shadow’s cage into the house. She and her remaining four kittens high-tailed it out of there and after three weeks we were resigned to having lost her. Tabitha, too. Total radio silence.

Three weeks! We’ve had them disappear for three days, but close to a month?

On Tuesday morning Debbie stood by the front door and said with disbelief, “I see a cat!” I took a quick look then grabbed the cat food and stepped outside. It was Rocket! And I sat down to feed and pet her.

She was kitten-sized and clearly had been surviving on a starvation diet. She didn’t mind the attention, though, and even pushed her face into my hand to get a little added affection. I asked about her kittens but she ignored my questions.

Then on Wednesday, Debbie looked out on the back deck and spied Tabitha! Here they are, Tabitha on the left and Rocket on the right. 

We’re talking about how to catch both of them to have them spayed, but we also wanted Rocket to trust us and bring her kittens back. They seem to be gone. Caught by someone else? Food for predators? We don’t know.

Oh, we also caught one other fan of kitten food:

He was also a bit frightened and too scared to leave the cage when I opened it up, but I poked him in the behind and he toddled off toward the other side of the deck. He paused there indicating he wouldn’t have minded a bit more kitten food, but I told him the kitchen was closed.

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – The Bound of the Basketballs

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 10, 2026

Does that title sound like a pastiche of Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles? I hope it does, because that’s the intent. Here’s how it came about.

During the dress rehearsal of the short play festival in June I was sitting in the audience with my friend Steve Martin (not the Steve Martin you’re thinking of) who, like me, wrote and directed his own short play.

“Did you notice,” asked Steve, that almost every play is broadly comical and very silly except ours?” 

His play was a very affective story about someone who lost a loved one but gets a glimpse of her in a mystical way before losing her again. Mine was the dystopian future of an America without rights or the freedom to speak of such rights.

“Yeah,” I said, wondering where his train of thought was going, “I did notice.”

“Let’s make a pact,” said Steve, “Both of us will write witty inane comedies for next year and submit them to the festival.” 

“Agreed!” I said, knowing he posts puns almost daily on Facebook. We shook on it and the wheels began to turn.

Last week I recommended a Librivox recording of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery The Hound of the Baskervilles. This week I’ll introduce you to my notes for Eric Margerum’s Shirley Combs mystery “The Bound of the Basketballs.”

When I showed Steve my Notes page for this idea he waved it away, grinning “I got it just by reading the title!” And so the process begins.

Since all of Doyle’s novel is narrated by Dr. Watson, my short play will begin with a narration by Dr. Weston. Probably ending the opening speech with a remorseful sentence wishing that the renowned detective were there to help solve the mystery.

“But I am here,” says the voice of Shirley Combs before she steps into the light, “I’ve been here all along.” She enters with a self-satisfied grin in the guise of cleaning woman that is identical to the character that Carol Burnett used to play on her TV variety show.

Substituting for the English Moors will be the Basketball Floors, with an oft repeated adjective like “vast,” “desolate,” or “sinister” to evoke imagery similar to that found in the novel.

And the pernicious murder mystery to solve will be the death of Tracee Park, the young Hoosier upstart fresh out of college who took the WNBA by storm. Her detractors referred to her as “Trailer Park” before her unfortunate demise. “No more free throws for that trailer trash.”

The rest of the cast will rely on one actor quickly changing costumes to present characters like Coach Fanny Bright, Inspector LeStreet, and Concessionaire Morrie Arty.

I’ve given myself one more challenge, to come up with a satisfying resolution to the mystery that makes the audience admire the plotting skills of the writer. If that’s doesn’t happen, I’ll just make it a silly ending that employs a cringe-worthy pun.

Challenge Accepted!

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – The Hound of the Baskervilles

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 7, 2026

I recently enjoyed a LibriVox recording of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. I think I’ve now read or listened to every Sherlock Holmes story by Doyle, but I plan to get out my checklist to make sure I haven’t missed any.

LibriVox has done an exceptional job of recording books in the public domain and making them easily available through every audio recording app, from Apple to Xtunes. My only caution about their recordings is that they’re all voiced by volunteers who can be very, very good or somewhat amateur. I listened to Les Miserables many years ago and some chapters sounded like they were recorded by people who wanted to practice their English language skills…inexpertly. Other chapters were excellent.

The LibriVox recording of The Hound of the Baskervilles is what they call “a full cast recording,” meaning that people only speak their character’s words and a narrator reads the rest. In this case, Doyle is writing as Dr. Watson so the voice actor speaks both the narration and the dialogue of Watson. She was exceptional and I fully enjoyed her work. 

Yes, several of the characters were voiced by actors of a different gender, and some were American and others were British, but good storytelling quickly pulls you past those differences and you’ve soon forgotten them because you’re fully involved in the story. 

And what a story it is, too! I felt like I had visited the Moors of Northern England just from the poetic and in-depth descriptions of the countryside, sometimes beautiful, sometimes sinister, sometimes charming, and sometimes threatening. I’m so used to the Sherlock Holmes cases leaning heavily on facts and evidence, that I wasn’t expecting that kind of portrait of characters, dwellings, and the countryside.

Well done Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!

I’m sure there are many alternate recordings to choose from, but take it from an acting teacher and theatre director, the LibriVox recording is worth the listen.

TTFN

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I thought I’d share my latest entry in the caption of a New Yorker cartoon. Hope it gives you a chuckle.

I think it’s time that Babar learns how to use the door.

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – The Ol’ Snip and Clip

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – July 31, 2026

We were surprised!

We started putting out the animal traps to catch the kittens and send them to the Humane Shelter, but Tommy (the tomcat) decided he’d like a bite of that kitten food and walked right into the cage on the porch.

Clang! The door slammed shut when he put his weight on that metal plate.

Tommy is practically identical to Tabitha, the older mama cat, and resembles Rocket as well. He’d been hanging around again and had taken to standing in the driveway singing the blues. The “Baby Daddy Blues,” that is. Most of the kittens look like him so we assumed he was the father of them all. Maybe the father of Rocket, and Tabitha as well.

Cats don’t have qualms about incest or other human mores.

Tommy didn’t go quietly. He hissed and thrashed about. He even scraped his left eyebrow—if you zoom in you can see the blood.

Poor guy just wanted a bite of food. Among other treats.

Tommy would come within a few feet of me when I sat and petted Rocket on the front porch, but dashed away when I stood up. He shared food bowls with the kittens as well, no bullying or manspreading.

Now he’s off to get snipped and clipped.

They’ll neuter him so he stops adding to the wild cat population and then clip one of his ears so anyone will know that he’s been fixed. The fellow from Animal Control told me that the shelter will try to find him a home, maybe in someone’s home, maybe as a barn cat for chasing rodents. If not, they’ll release him in the neighborhood where he was caught.

Meanwhile, on the back deck, Shadow walked into a different, smaller trap. His siblings scattered but Rocket watched me with wide eyes as I picked up the cage and took him inside. Shadow was terrified and huddled in the cat carrier we set up in the basement bathroom.

Here he is huddled among the towels:

You see the worried look on his face? Heartbreaking.

He spent two nights crying from about 4:00 AM to 6:00 AM. The second night I went down there at 5:00 and just sat with him. He was fine with getting petted, but the challenge was reaching him in the back of the cat carrier.

We sent Shadow to the shelter shortly after that. I fell a little bit in love with that sweet kitten, but knew we had to say goodbye. I’m sure he’ll get adopted very quickly.

Tabitha and her trio hightailed it to the woods when Tommy began his mating song, and Rocket took her remaining four kittens away right after seeing Shadow brought inside. We can’t catch the any more if they’re not around.

It’s too, too quiet around here.

TTFN

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Quick update: these two kittens of Tabitha’s walked into cages on Tuesday morning. Moth, the tabby with a brown patch on her forehead, and Smokey, the black kitten almost identical to Shadow. If you’re keeping track of the genealogy, these two would be Shadow’s aunt and uncle (or two uncles or two aunts, I didn’t go poking around in their privates).

The fact that both mama cats had litters of tabbies with one black cat is further argument that Tommy is the Baby Daddy of both litters.

We were glad to see them cuddling together for comfort. I’m afraid the third one will have to brave it out like Shadow did.

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – Girl Dads

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – July 24, 2026

I was reading a post on Substack the other day when another short play started germinating in my mind. While I was on my morning walk I started writing it in my head.

The Substack author, Sasha Brown-Worsham, described an incident that happened to her 19-year-old daughter. She was at the beach with her friends when they walked off to get food and she was suddenly alone. 

An older man took the opportunity to approach her, started asking uncomfortable questions and wouldn’t leave her alone. When a dad in his 40’s saw what was happening, he approached her like an old friend and successfully deflected the advances of the other man.

Later, the daughter told her mother that she and her friends have a name for men like that: Girl Dads. Men who quietly steer other men away from a girl who doesn’t want the attention nor the expectations that go with it.

While walking, I came upon a young 20-something who was taking pictures of plants at the edge of the path. I could tell she was aware of my approach, and I wanted to put her at ease so I pointed to her phone and said “My wife has an app she uses to identify wild plants she wants to learn the names of.”

Her face lit up and she returned my smile showing me her phone. “I do, too!”

“Those are great.” I said cheerfully, and continued on.

Later, when I saw her again we exchanged waves and smiles.

My short play now begins with that young woman taking a picture of a plant when the unwanted stranger approaches. I currently have him in my script as “CREEP,” but I’ll have to come up with an actual character name. 

Unlike my normal process, I’ve written a page of dialogue for when GIRL DAD gets involved and prevents CREEP from making further advances. I’m not sure how CREEP operates and tries to manipulate GIRL, but pretty soon I’ll have to strip down and step into that godawful bog to figure out what he’ll say and do.

That’ll probably alter the lines I’ve written already, but it think that’ll feel like a deep cleaning and I’m totally up for that!

I replied to Brown-Worsham’s post with my intent to write a three-hander 10-Minute play, adding “I like to think the arts can set a trend to normalize this kind of heroism.”

It can be a high bar, but I now belong to a playwrights group and I intend to get their valuable input once it’s in good shape.

TTFN

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Speaking of the playwrights group, I promised to let you know how the evening of five-minute play readings went last week (A Fugesberg Fourth). I thought it went very well and was pleased that my play got laughs in all the right places. The other plays did, too, and I’m sure the playwrights were happy with the readings.

I also got to enjoy the company of many people from Civic Theatre who had been involved in the Short Play Festival a couple of weeks ago. Three of them responded to the offer to join the Greater Lafayette Playwrights Group and our little cabal of creatives continues to grow. I love that.

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles