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Margerumalia – Homemade Smog

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – October 23, 2026

Oops, my bad. I burned the formica.

…50 years ago.

It all began with a Christmas gift. What do you get a boy who’s good with numbers, has a healthy curiosity, but isn’t quite as focused on schoolwork as his older brother?

Well, if you’re a Professor of Chemistry you get him a chemistry set!

(After all I had played a lot with my magic kit. I even put on a magic show for my dad’s graduate students.)

DAD, here’s your first clue, your son’s into performing. Second clue, one of your grad students invites him to perform his magic for his child’s birthday party. And he jumps at the chance. Third clue, he’s memorized every lyric to musicals from HMS Pinafore to Mary Poppins, and sings along with the records enthusiastically.

Now that I write that, I’m thinking Dad might have been trying to steer the HMS Enthusiasm into calmer waters, somewhere I could learn to make a decent living.

One day when I was complaining about having nothing to do, my mom reminded me that I had a chemistry set downstairs that I had never played with. She was right, so I went downstairs to open up the booklet that came with the set and started looking for something interesting to do.

Smog. I had heard about it on the TV news almost every night. There was, at that time, no such thing as unleaded gasoline. A few years later, my cousins who grew up in Los Angeles told me about how the skies were dark green with air pollution. Smog was literally on everyone’s lips.

So here was a way to make smog. It must be safe to do, or why include it in the chemistry set? I followed the recipe, mixed the dry chemicals and heaped them onto a tablespoon that I held over a flame.

The smoke streamed from the spoon in a very satisfying cloud and rose to the ceiling while I watched. Suddenly my mom ran down the stairs yelling at me.

“What are you doing?!” she cried.

“Making smog,” I told her.

“Well stop it!” she yelled, running around the basement to prop open the window wells.

Somewhere in my rush to stop the smog machine I managed to burn the formica near the edge of the sink. And it remains to this day, the blackened remnant of my chemistry creation, about the size of a quarter and a nickel melded together.

I lost all interest in my gift after that. When I got to high school, my father helped me with my chemistry homework but we never discussed the affair of the mad scientist and what he did in the basement.

Oops! My bad.

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 – Proof Copy

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – October 16, 2026

I got the proof copy of Verses Versus Curses last week and carried it on my morning walk every day for five days so I could show it to friends and acquaintances. One or two were complete strangers but were very happy that I showed it to them. A couple even had suggestions about promoting it with school librarians, parent groups, and venues.

You know what 80 to 90 percent said?

“Where can I buy a copy?”

One even said, “Now I know what I’m giving my grandchildren for Christmas!”

That was the plan! I had asked the folks at BookBaby what kind of target date I should have for getting it published in time for the holidays and they suggested October 1st. Andrea knew that wasn’t a hard-and-fast deadline but made her best effort to meet that date.

The final order was placed October 9th so that was pretty darn close. Especially considering the six hour time difference between us. (She lives in Denmark.)

Showing the book to so many people, I saw how they responded first to the illustrations—as expected—and then took the time to read a poem or two…or three. One 20-something read the whole thing from start to finish. I’ve not studied marketing but I know that Andrea’s artwork is going to spark the interest that makes a person pick up the book and look inside. 

Andrea is also going to provide me with line drawings from the book that I’ll use to create coloring pages as giveaways.

A proof copy is a chance to hold and examine the book as it would be produced in a full run. So I sat down with the book in hand and even though I had seen the entire layout several times on the Canva app, I found two mistakes.

The mistakes were mine. 

One line of poetry that should’ve been separated at the comma, continued for three more words before taking a new line. And on another page, a single word from a line of poetry got dropped down to the line below—sitting there sighing with all alone.

I checked the online version and it was exactly the same. How could I have missed it? I saw what I thought I was seeing rather than what was actually there. Who does that?

Everyone, apparently! [Insert political comment here.]

Fortunately, years of grading student papers honed my skills for catching typos.

I had Andrea run a corrected copy of the file before I submitted the full order. It should be available in stores by early November. Perfect timing.

My publisher also informed me that the ebook will only be available on Kindle and Apple Books because those are the two platforms that do picture book formats.

Watch this space for a release date.

TTFN

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I celebrated my 67th birthday this week and was amused to see this Family Circus comic in the newspaper. (A Boomer who gets a newspaper! Kinda on the nose, isn’t it?)

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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 – Photo Detective

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – October 9, 2026

This is a photo I forgot to share from our visit to New York City. I’m holding the program for Project: Library in front of the primary set piece for the musical. Taking such a picture before the performance is entirely acceptable when you share it on social media and help spread the word about the show.

Every small theatre needs any extra publicity they can get.

The show had a good run and now our daughter is busy creating self-tape auditions for other productions. (No one actually uses videotape these days, “self-tape” is just a leftover turn of phrase from an earlier era…like dialing a phone…or playing parlor games.)

Last week I wrote about an Agatha Christie mystery I was reading and, looking at this photo, I found myself playing detective to see what I could share with you from a director’s perspective. Here are four interesting details about what you’re seeing.

1. The bookshelves across the upstage wall have no back to them giving the books a supernatural glow from behind. Why is that? My daughter explained that the pit band and their conductor who are seated behind the set need to see important moments on stage for their music cues. And, to the left—hidden by my program—there’s a wide entrance that affords the conductor greater visibility of other places on stage.

2. The white dots you see on the floor are not lens reflections, those are painted on the floor and they’re called spike marks. They let actors and stagehands know exactly where to place a chair or table on stage. In technical rehearsals, the lights were focused on those areas to isolate an actor during certain scenes. Without the spike marks there’s a risk that the actor might be half in shadow.

That’s okay for the Phantom of the Opera, but not for most other characters.

3. To the right of the bookshelves you can barely see the door that matches the cover of the program. Look for the shiny reflection of the doorknob. And, yes, a mysterious backlit figure will stand in that doorway. Count on it!

4. Now take a look at the program where that backlit figure casts a shadow over the title of the musical. If you look very carefully, you’ll see it’s the shadow of a dragon. Why? Because the unreturned book that’s accumulated a million dollars in late fees is Rory the Dragon. That’s what sets off the whole plot! Our daughter got to be the puppeteer of that dragon in a dream sequence about halfway through the musical.

So here’s a fun game of parlor game to play with a friend. Swap photos and then share what you can figure out based on what you see. Follow that up by creating backstories for people and places in the photo. You don’t have to play this game in a parlor—I don’t think anyone has parlors anymore—just enjoy getting together and making stuff up.

TTFN

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Here’s another one of the captions I submitted to The New Yorker. Enjoy!

I blame it on the current administration: everyone’s losing their cool.

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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 – One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – October 2, 2026

Yesterday we entered October Country where things are not always what they seem and the unknown is mysterious indeed. The mystery above, though, is in the capable hands of the famous detective Hercule Poirot, one of Agatha Christie’s most well-known crime solvers.

I read my first Agatha Christie mystery in high school when the Scholastic Books were featured on a four page flyer and you could order a pocket paperback for 75 cents. I chose The ABC Murders and was introduced to M. Poirot and his “little grey cells” long before I delved into my First Sherlock Holmes story.

“It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within—not without.” ~ Poirot

At that same high school, where I substituted just last week, a free-for-the-taking withdrawal cart outside the library held three Agatha Christie novels. Two of them featured Hercule Poirot. I intend to read them all and then donate them to a “little library” I’ve seen around town.

In this story, M. Poirot visits his dentist and observes a young man in the waiting room who he thinks looks like a murderer. Of course, a death does take place and Chief Inspector Japp requests the help of Poirot to solve the unexplained circumstances.

The dentist is found dead in his office, shot apparently by his own hand. Then the patient he worked on last dies at home of a heart attack. Perhaps the dentist realized he had injected too much painkiller and committed suicide rather than face the consequences? Poirot isn’t convinced and starts to investigate a possible murder.

This rather cozy mystery has all the elements of the standard motive-means-opportunity puzzle that seems a little mundane for this detective. Then Poirot learns that there is something far more important going on that has the flavor of an international incident. The scope of the puzzle widens considerably.

I leave the rest for you discover on your own.

(It’s interesting to note that this story was first published in 1941 during the German Blitzkrieg of WWII before the US entered the war with the attack on Pearl Harbor.)

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 – Caret, Carat, Carrot

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – September 25, 2026

I submitted the files for my book of children’s poetry last Friday and I wanted to share another short poem preview with you (above). The book also has longer poems but this made for an easy newsletter screenshot. 

Aren’t Andrea Benko’s illustrations perfect? I have to draw your attention to the scale at the top of the illustration: it’s in the shape of a caret (or insertion). It’s a brilliant take on the poem that I just love.

You’re seeing purple lines around the border because those are the boundaries on the template for printing purposes. BookBaby provided us with a template and Andrea loaded it into Canva for—dare I say it—coloring within the lines.

I was so nervous about having sent the right files for the various formats that I composed an email to my contact at BookBaby and asked him to tell me if anything was the wrong format or the wrong color palette. I saved everything that Andrea sent me so I can produce a different version any time.

Yes, I’m dropping names right and left, and I have to compliment them all:

Andrea Benko – a delightful illustrator and work partner

Canva – an app that had far more capabilities than I imagined

BookBaby – these folk did such a nice job with my novel that I trusted them to handle this book as well—no complaints

I’ll let you know when I set a release date, but it should be ready in time for the holidays.

TTFN

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I thought I’d share another caption I created for The New Yorker’s weekly caption contest. I didn’t win, but the three top captions were very amusing so I’m not bummed. I enjoy the challenge.

Oh, King must really like you. He usually insists on playing white.

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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 – Project Library

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – September 18, 2026

Last weekend Debbie and I went to New York City to see our daughter Lora perform in a new musical called Project Library.

Her husband, Harry (pictured above with Lora), was on the props team and helped build the set.

The musical was very well done with a lot of fantastic voices, tight choreography, and broad comic moments that brought raucous laughter from the crowd. The story had multiple characters, so I won’t try to give you a plot summary, but the “project” all begins with an overdue book with accumulated fines totaling one million dollars. That kind of money attracts all kinds of people, the good, the bad, and the greedy.

But don’t worry, they all get really great songs!

Lora was a member of the ensemble and played Ruth, a member of the library staff, she also got to be the puppeteer of a dragon. She’s the swing for two characters and on Tuesday, September 15, she got to step into the role of Rachel for one night.

I’m writing this on Tuesday afternoon, but watching the actor play Rachel last weekend I pictured Lora doing a great job with this role and with her song, so I can tell you now, it was a huge success!

We had a great time and if you happen to be in NYC, it’s closing this weekend, so pull up your Eventbrite app and order your tickets while there’s still time.

And you may be shushed by a librarian or two, but feel free to laugh it up in the theatre!

TTFN

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Last week I wrote a few recollections of 9/11 and Project Library opened on the 25th anniversary of those events. So our little four-year-old is now 29 and performing in the same city that we watched on TV. Many police and firefighters displayed their memorials to the heroes who gave their lives to help others. Please take a moment to remember their sacrifices, the victims of that attack, and all their families and friends.

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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 – 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