Tag: LocalAuthor

Margerumalia – The Birds & The Bees

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – April 17, 2026

Photo: Debbie Margerum

Spring has sprung, as they say, and the woods are full of life, so I thought I’d share a bit of it with you.

Debbie is so good at getting nature photos that I’m using some of hers. I tried to capture a bee on a purple flower from just two feet away, but I wasn’t close enough, so she let me borrow hers. It’s an art! The uncredited photos are mine.

This pair of Mallard ducks arrive every year about this time and enjoy paddling around in the stream. I’ve never seen them with youngsters, but this is their mating season. Fun fact: the Mallards are a sub-family of ducks called dabbling ducks. Isn’t that cute? 

Question: Are you a real duck?

Answer: Naw, I’m just dabbling.

The Redbuds are the big show-offs every spring because, you know, they can. Hillsides are covered with these audacious blooms, bringing a symphony of color to the woods before the maples, oaks, and birches can break out their greenery and soak up all the sunlight. 

As I was walking, I was wondering how to describe the color of these trees using only words. It can be really hard to capture—as are taste and smell—but I think I gave it a pretty good go with this sentence: 

The blossoms are a jubilant shade of pinkish purple normally exclusive to the domain of children’s toys and clothing.

Photo: Debbie Margerum

The squirrels are dashing everywhere digging up acorns they buried last fall. How do they know?! They must have a built-in geolocation app. This photo is from a couple years ago, back before we had to have the old oak tree removed. It’s like he posed for this portrait, it’s so perfect.

That old white oak was situated on the lot when my parents decided to build the house so they had the architect draw up plans in an L-shape to preserve the tree. We estimated that it was about 250 years old when we took it down. The hollow inside made it a danger to the house, but it lived a long grand life.

On my morning walks I constantly see red squirrels chasing away grey squirrels like the one in the photo. “Hey,” I say, “why can’t we just all get along?”

The bluebells opened up the other day. Can you tune in your faery senses to hear them ringing? It’s a subtle tinkling noise that calls to the pollinators, “We’re here! We’re here!”

I love that I could capture the morning dew glistening on these flowers. I’ve learned a few things from my talented photographer wife.

And just as the Easter egg is a symbol of fertility for this fecund spring season, our outdoor cats went into heat a couple of months ago enticing several tomcats to haunt the premises. 

That’s Tabitha on the left eating from the bowl. She’s brought us eleven kittens over three years. We’ve found them homes or had them taken to the Humane Society where they were adopted. She’s walking with a distinctive waddle now. We think she’ll give birth any day.

Her daughter Rocket—from the second litter—is seated on the Adirondack chair where the old oak tree used to stand, watching the early morning activities of the neighborhood. 

She’s also got a full womb. I know because I pet her every morning while she eats, and I talk to her about finding a good nesting spot away from predators but not too far away so she can still come to eat every morning on our front porch. Gotta be able to produce enough milk. 

It’s her first litter so I figure any information is only going to help.

From past experience we know we won’t see the kittens until about two months after they’re born. So watch this space for some adorable kitty pics in June!

TTFN

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Spring Author Fair

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – April 10, 2026

I’m looking forward to attending another Spring Author Fair at our Tippecanoe County Library where I’ll be doing my elevator pitch about The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles and talk a bit about the sequel, The Most Amazing Museum of Chicago.

Because a giant maze is featured in the first book I’ll be giving away free mazes that I found on line (including the website where they can find more). I really enjoy talking to people, especially hearing from children about their interests. Several adults have bought copies of the book to read to their children or grandchildren. That really warms my heart.

I’ve written about a third of MAMCHI including quite a lengthy section where two girls go back in time to The Great Chicago Fire. Two boys, meanwhile, have a rainforest adventure which results in a torrent of water almost pulling them under. And the young teacher and her student find themselves in a toy workshop where unexpected things take place.

Beware The Game Master! He keeps on showing up and making trouble for the young people.

I’ve also been writing more poems for my side project of Verses Versus Curses, a collection of verses that I think children will enjoy. I’ll read a few of them at the Author Fair to anyone who wants to listen.

(My speech seems to be improving, but still gets a little slurry by the end of the day.)

I’m sharing my latest poem with you below. This time I’m inserting a hashtag between the stanzas to give them clear separation.

Thirteen is a Lucky Number

Thirteen is a lucky number, everybody knows,

I have thirteen fingers when I use three of my toes.

A basement should have thirteen stairs if someone builds it right,

I always count my thirteen steps when I go down at night.

#

They say to break a mirror gives you seven years of bad

Luck is just a silly notion, or so says my dad.

My black cat’s name is Shadow and her eyes glow in the dark

Sometimes just to scare her I will crawl upstairs and bark. 

#

Thirteen is a baker’s dozen, I like snicker-doodles.

Let’s make a batch and split them up, as long as I get oodles.

The seasons each have thirteen weeks and I like autumn best,

Next Halloween I’ll wear a scary mask when I get dressed.

#

Poems that have thirteen lines are better than the rest!

TTFN

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Here’s another of my entries in the weekly caption contest by “The New Yorker.”

Yes, a little morning flute music is nice, it’s the midnight drum solos I can’t bear.

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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 Theatre of Basketball

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – April 3, 2026

NCAA.org

The other day I subbed at the Jr/Sr High School where I got to supervise the Junior High Gym during one of the lunch periods. As I watched the players vying for position, passing, and shooting their hearts out even without keeping score, I couldn’t help but think about the theatricality of the sport and I made a list of their most dramatic moments.

Once a theatre director, always a theatre director.

I’m open!—This full body plea for attention includes jumping up and down and waving your arms vigorously like you’re directing the pilot of a biplane where to land on a foggy runway. Yelling the name of the teammate with the ball repeatedly is also important.

I didn’t touch it!—If the ball is headed out of bounds, you want to make it clear that you didn’t touch it last. This move requires you to fake rigor mortis while performing a hands-up-don’t-shoot posture.

Setting the block.—When your teammate has the ball and needs to escape an opponent, you can stand stock still just a few inches away so they can dribble around you and leave the opponent unable to pursue. Using the same move in the aisle of a supermarket, however, might get you ejected from the store. Basketball is more forgiving.

What’s over there?—Any good magician will tell you that the trick is to make the audience focus on one hand while the other hand pockets the handkerchief, or playing card. If you have the ball and intend to pass it, your defender will try to block the pass in the direction that you just looked. When you make a successful fake, you can then pass it the other direction without interference. In theatre and film this is called the who’s-that-behind-the-curtain look and it just might save your character’s life!

The “I’m okay” limp—Among the unwritten laws of athletics is the obligation to play through your pain even to the point of permanent damage. However—and this is important—you never want to be perceived as failing to suffer for the game. Getting up from the floor and limping for six or seven steps can fulfill both of these expectations. Then you can return to the business of running around the court like a mad man.

Selling the foul.—At the other end of the spectrum from the “I’m okay” limp is the task of making sure everyone, especially the referee, sees that your opponent fouled you egregiously. Gotta earn those two free-throw shots, they’re not participation awards! If you’re gymnastically trained, a quick move by your opponent is an opportunity to tuck-and-roll for all your worth, making sure you finish flat on the floor, not leaping up victoriously as you did in gymnastics. If you don’t have that training, remember that the butt of your basketball shorts were made with fabric that will glide two or three yards across the polished floorboards while you mask your face with shock and disgust that anyone could use such unsportsmanlike tactics.

Modest scoring—No one likes a big ego, so when you score a nothing-but-net basket from outside the three point line, don’t show your excitement. Your inner child may be jumping up and down like a chimpanzee on crack, but you must adopt a too-cool-for-school expression. Everyone’s looking at you, and your face must say, “Yeah, I meant to do that.”

The agony of failure—The opposite of modest scoring is the trauma of failing to score. As an athlete and a team member, you have a duty to suffer deeply when you fail to make a shot. Not feeling it? Then fake it! Try screwing up your face and huffing like you’re about to cry but fighting it. (Also referred to as the Kyle Rittenhouse maneuver.) You may also throw yourself bodily onto the floor and pound the court with your fists. You might want to save that last move for the day when you fail to score the winning point that cost your team the game. They will expect no less.

This newsletter will be posted before the end of March Madness, so I encourage you to watch the game with your bingo cards ready to give due credit to the actors…um, athletes… on the boards.

TTFN

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Friends, Lovers, and The Big Terrible Thing

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – March 27, 2026

Matthew Perry and I apparently wore the same Chandler Bing smirk to our photoshoots! Mine was about 1993, Perry’s was published on the cover of his memoir in 2022.

Could our smiles be any more similar?

I yield all future copyright for the Chandler smirk to him, but I want it to be known that my photoshoot was at least a year prior to the debut of Friends. Maybe two. I could hardly copy an expression that I had never seen before.

I bought the memoir shortly after he died in 2023. Ketamine overdose. I finally pulled it off the shelf because my wife found a TV channel that plays about four episodes of Friends back-to-back every afternoon.

Seeing Matty—as he refers to himself throughout the book—grow from a young 25 year-old into a mature 35 year-old over and over again drew me like a moth to his flame.

I had no idea about the intensity of that flame.

He was an addict from early, early, on. At two months, when he wouldn’t stop crying, the doctor prescribed phenobarbital to give some relief to the baby and his parents. Matty spent the rest of his life, taking drugs, drinking heavily, and smoking. Today, a colicky baby is treated with a nice round of probiotics, maybe some baby gas drops, and a warm belly rub. He is NOT given a highly addictive drug in the earliest days of his brain’s development.

Matty’s journey was a tough one and he’s brutally honest about it, but he also treats the reader to insights about his career, his relationships, and his dearest friendships.

The saddest part of the memoir is the conclusion where he’s finally out of the woods, saying that OxyContin will not rule his life again, the daily jugs of vodka are all in the past, and that he gave up smoking. To hear him say those words—literally, if you’re listening to him narrate the audiobook—while knowing he sank slowly into his swimming pool while Ketamine surged through his veins, is not easy when you think of him as one of your Friends.

God bless you, Matty, and may your afterlife provide all the remedies you spent 54 years trying your best to find.

TTFN

* * * * *

In the spirit of Matthew Perry’s quick wit and love of laughter, I offer you my latest entry in the weekly caption contest from “The New Yorker.” Perhaps I’ll win one of these days.

I mean, it’s like she expects me to be an Everything Bagel!

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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 – Meet-iversary Celebration

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – March 27, 2026

Debbie and I stopped for a selfie beside the movie poster for The Bride! at our local theater. The two monsters are on the right, in case you were wondering. 

A few days later we had another date night celebrating our meet-iversary at our favorite restaurant, The Bryant. The fact that The Bride! and The Bryant almost sound alike is just a lucky coincidence.

We met when a mutual friend, Kat, was celebrating her 40th birthday and invited each of us to a party in a very modern house perched high atop the Hollywood Hills. It wasn’t her house, but it was a spectacular work of architecture with large windows looking down on the lights of Sunset Blvd.

If you want to get a good look at the house where we met, you can find it on YouTube under “Lethal Weapon 2 (9/10) Movie CLIP – Bringing Down the House (1989) HD”. Don’t worry about the fact that Mel Gibson drags the house down the hillside, that’s just a model. We visited the house a couple years ago and it’s still there.

Debbie was Kat’s massage therapist, and Kat and I were both in the same acting class. Kat knew I was working as a bartender at the Pantages Theatre and she offered to pay me to pour wine at her party. I offered to gift my services in honor of her birthday and she thanked me, telling  me to consider myself a guest. “There will also be single women there,” she added with a smile. (As a friend of my ex-fiancee,  she knew I had been single for about a year.)

Kat’s comment to Debbie was similar: “There will also be single men there.”

Debbie came down the stairs and smiled at me, and I thought I’d like to be the one who kindled that smile for years to come. She, in turn, has said many times that her first thought was “Oh, there’s my future husband.” We talked throughout the rest of the evening and got married a year and two months after that. 

Is that a classic Hollywood meet-cute or what?!

Someone gave us a photo of Debbie and I from that night and it sits in a place of honor on our mantle. That’s me on the left, mid-sentence, talking to my acting teacher. Debbie is in profile holding the wine I poured her. No one knows who the skinny-tie-guy is, but he’s holding an empty wine glass so that might explain his expression of exasperation. 

Not my fault, I had just met my future wife!

TTFN

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Movie Night!

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – March 6, 2026

That’s our daughter Lora showing us her make-up for The Bride! 

I’ve been sitting on those pictures for almost two years, but now the day has come!

You may have seen trailers for the film already. Lora’s make-up follows the theme of the title character played by Jessie Buckley under the direction of Maggie Gyllenhaal. Christian Bale plays Frankenstein’s monster.

It’s described as a horror-romance film set in 1930’s Chicago where the monster and his bride spark a radical social movement in a Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque outlaw story. Trailers can be found on line.

I’m not one for horror movies, in fact I’m a big coward*, but I’m not gonna miss my daughter in a major motion picture! I’ll just hunker down over my bucket of popcorn and breathe deeply.

[*Seriously, I played the Cowardly Lion in high school! Type casting, anyone? “I DO believe in spooks. I DO believe in spooks…”]

I’m reminded of my grandfather who’s father clung to the mast in a terrific storm in the North Sea, promising God—in Norwegian—that he would dedicate his life to His service if he would just save him from this tragedy. Great-Grandpa survived the storm and his son was brought up to shun movies because they were made in Hollywood, the Sodom and Gomorrah of the time.

My grandfather felt he had to honor his father’s wishes by not going to see any movie in the theaters.

“But Grandpa,” I said when I was in my 20’s, “you’re the one who told me that if you could go from a farm boy to a lawyer during The Great Depression then I could make it as an actor.”

“I still think so.” 

“So wouldn’t you and Grandma go to a movie to see me?” 

“Oh, yes, of course we would. That’s different.”

“Thanks Grandpa.”

Those lawyers, they know the spirit of the law is different from the letter of the law.

In that same spirit, I will face my heebie-jeebies to see my daughter in a horror movie.

…But I still reserve the right to cover my eyes during the scary parts. 

TTFN

* * * * *

I recently spotted a copy of my book on the “Local Author” shelf of the county library. They’re going to hold a Spring Author Fair on April 18th and I’ve already agreed to attend. Last year I sold about a half dozen of my books, maybe this year I’ll sell a few more.

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Sitting By The Sea

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – February 27, 2026

Painting by Eugen Jettel 

As I was writing verses to add to my collection of children’s poetry, I realized I had a longer poem I wrote about fifteen years ago that’d fit nicely into this treasury. It’s been sitting in my writing.com account where it attracted a dozen or so compliments, so I thought I’d share it with you here.

Emerson Aaronson Sat By The Sea

Emerson Aaronson sat by the sea

And when he grew up he wanted to be…

A fish from the ocean that flies through the water 

Or an eagle up-soaring just like her dad taught her.

He’d jump in the air and flick fin or feather 

Then float as he pleased in the very best weather.

Or maybe that’s not what he wanted to be, 

He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…

A Tyrannosaurus would be loads of fun,

Stomping around in the afternoon sun.

No one would tell him what he had to do

Or what to eat or how he should chew!

But, maybe that’s not what he wanted to be, 

He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…

The horses that ran on the beach were so fast

That Emerson knew he would just have a blast

With bucking and playing in waves and in foam

Then munching on apples when he trotted home.

Still, maybe that’s not what he wanted to be, 

He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…

He thought about wanting to be the whole ocean, 

The noise he could make with his watery motion

Would be just like laughing and splashing unending,

Emerson smiled with the joy of pretending.

Yet, maybe that’s not what he wanted to be, 

He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…

He watched a man run with a dog by his side.

The thought of dog-loyalty filled him with pride.

What a great feeling to love and get petted,

A dog’s life was happy and never regretted.

Though, maybe that’s not what he wanted to be, 

He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…

Emerson saw puffy clouds that were white,

Saw camels and flowers and even a knight.

To roll and unfold a new picture a minute

That was a life with a lot of fun in it.

And, maybe that’s not what he wanted to be, 

He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…

He thought about soaring and floating and stomping,

He thought about running and playing and jumping,

He thought about splashing and being the sea,

He thought about clouds and of dog-loyalty.

Then Emerson knew what he wanted to be

And thought to himself as he stood by the sea…

“I want to be all of those great things in one

To laugh, roll and play in the afternoon sun,

Imagining all that I’m wanting to be 

Can only be done by someone like me!”

This poem actually has stanzas alternating between two lines and four lines each, but for the life of me I could not figure out how to make this blog’s software recognize a blank line after a stanza.

It may be a case of Verse Discrimination, but it’d probably get defended as Un-poetic License.

TTFN

[I selected the painting above because it was done in the 1880’s and is in the public domain. Its title is actually “Boy Sitting by a River Bank” but I thought it captured the mood of my poem. I found it on Wikimedia Commons. Shout out to my friend Woody for suggesting this approach.]

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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 – Bullying

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – February 20, 2026

It was just before the Seventh Grade Basketball try-outs.

I joined the dozens of other boys under one of the baskets hoping to catch a rebound and have a chance to try a shot. But I never even touched a ball. There were just too many guys and most of them were taller than me.

Off to the side I saw a single tall boy shooting a single basketball at a single hoop. So I walked over to him, watched him shoot several times and then caught the ball when it came to me.

He put out his hands. “Gimme it.” 

“I want to shoot it,” I said. 

He stepped closer and jammed his knee into my crotch, taking the ball when I crumpled to the floor. He went back to shooting while I rolled on the floor in agony and surprise. No one had ever done that to me before.

And no one, NO ONE, made any effort to see if I was okay.

A few minutes later everyone was called over to the edge of the gym to hear the instructions for the try-outs. I pulled myself from the floor and staggered over to join them. I was embarrassed because the other boys and the coaches were acting like nothing had happened.

I’d always been an outgoing kid with a smile for everyone, so this was a completely new experience. I knew my name would be among the first ones cut from the roster, but was I crazy? He kneed me in the balls!

I was grateful not to make the team. Who wants that?

Bullying was not a problem for me. I pretty much got along with everyone. Thank goodness I found my place and my people in the Junior High Follies where I auditioned to be an emcee and four girls who were auditioning as a group invited me to join them. The five of us emceed together and introduced each act with a short skit of our own creation. Think Saturday Night Live before SNL even began. 

Fast forward about twenty years to Los Angeles. My agent sent me to audition for a Sprite commercial where they lined us up in front of big bright lights in a gymnasium and told us to boogie to the music they played. Okay, sounds fun. 

I was placed at the end of the line and when the music began I put on my best party face and danced. Until the tall guy next to me shoved me off the line and into the dark where I stumbled and stood stunned. This kind of thing hadn’t happened since junior high! 

And no one. NO ONE made any effort to see if I was okay.

I rejoined the line and tried my best to smile for the camera but my heart wasn’t in it. And I was watching everything the creep next to me did to make sure I wouldn’t get shoved again. I was embarrassed because everyone else was acting like nothing had happened.

Let’s be clear. Despite what certain people say, might does NOT make right. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

The tech bros who spout off about moving fast and breaking things are forgetting that people get hurt when you break things.

It takes so very little to say, “Hey, are you okay?” That’s what human beings are set on this Earth to do. That’s why we say humane when someone treats someone well, and inhumane when they don’t.

Don’t tell me we need to teach more civics in school. It takes a civil society to do that. Teach civility first.

In high school I had developed the habit of “skiing” down a steep set of concrete stairs, letting my sneakers glide over the smooth edges of the steps leading down to the theatre and the boys locker rooms. One day I lost control and fell headlong toward the bottom of the stairwell.

The guy who had kneed me in the groin in junior high school was three steps ahead of me and quickly turned to catch my fall by extending his arm. “Careful,” he said kindly. “It’s kinda slippery.”

I always said he saved my life. If I had been alone I would have fallen head first into a concrete stairwell between the doors to the theatre and the boys locker room. I feel like he payed his debt to me and I’ll always remember that he took just a moment to help me. He made an effort to see if I was okay.

TTFN

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WEBSITES ABOUT BULLYING

Searching for an image to use with this newsletter, I ran across several helpful websites that I want to share here.

stopbullying.gov – A website from the US government addressing issues of bullying and prevention, including a section on “Race, Ethnicity, National Origin & Religion.”

psychologytoday.com/us/basics/bullying – A highly regarded magazine with dozens of articles about bullying, and how to deal with it.

BucketsOverBullying.org – A sports-centric initiative committed to eliminating cyberbullying among children and teens.

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Survey Country

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – February 13, 2026

Drawing by Eric Margerum

Did you read my drawing credit? I drew that! I’m pretty excited by how it turned out. 

Granted, the top of the signpost is either in a different universe from the base, or it was made from a branch that suffered a difficult youth from which it never fully recovered.

But I had bemoaned my inability to draw just a couple of weeks ago, and that’s not a bad attempt! My cousin Hugh is an excellent artist (hughmargerum.com) and he could probably give me a few pointers, but for now I’m gonna take the win.

Welcome to Survey Country

How many times do you get asked to fill out a survey each week? Last week I had three.

And here’s the thing.

I’ve done my share of rating people over the decades, and I’m pretty good at giving compliments. I taught a lot of classes both as a professor and as a dean for twenty-four years. I also directed plays—as many as five in a school year, but always at least one. I know that people need supportive words to encourage them and to embolden them to keep making progress.

As a dean, I also had to write performance reviews for every faculty and staff member under my supervision. I’ve done a lot of evaluations. 

So why would I fill out yet another survey? I mean, the others were part of my job. I was getting paid to write evaluations.

After I had my teeth cleaned at the dentist last week I got an email asking me to fill out a survey on their service. I feel guilty when I don’t fill out the survey because I’m afraid they’ll only hear from the folks who were unhappy.

Oh, sure, I could complain because my usual dentistry had a burst water pipe and they had to reroute me to another location a few hours before my appointment. But am I gonna throw them under the bus for that? No.

They gave me the same appointment time and I didn’t have to wait. And they were so friendly. Especially to the young woman who was training on a new computer system. The fact that they treated her well, boosted my confidence in how they would treat me.

Okay, okay, I’ve just convinced myself. I’ll fill out their survey as soon as I finish writing this.

When my wife came back from Fresh Thyme Market she had a receipt asking for a survey response AND it offered a chance to win $250 for doing so. That’s not a guaranteed payment but at least they’re offering a tempting incentive. 

Besides, Fresh Thyme let me set up a book signing table in their store and I sold four or five books to their customers. They are also really friendly. I already filled out that survey. 

Many survey requests are just a ploy to get your compliments posted on social media. CVS expects one every time I buy a package of dental floss.

My Science Friday podcast reminds me to rate and review them every episode. But only if it’s positive, haha.

I see where experts on how to sell your indie book, say I should be asking you to post a favorable review of my book on Amazon or wherever you buy books. Apparently that’s the way the world turns. 

So I’ll rate the dentist and maybe score a few more karma points to get some nice ratings for myself.

Welcome to Survey Country.

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 – Running With The Demon

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – February 6, 2026

When I was in high school, my brother and I painted houses to earn money for college. We listened to a radio that kept playing the same top ten hits all day long and my mind would wander off to a story by Terry Brooks that had captured my attention: The Sword of Shannara.

Having read all the magical adventures of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, the release of the first Shannara book whet my appetite for more adventure. That began a long procession of Brooks’ books that I read for about fifty years. The man has only recently announced his retirement but fortunately his designated successor will continue to carry the torch under his oversight.

When Running With The Demon came out in 1997 I was quick to dismiss it as “not a Shannara book,” but Brooks later acknowledged the Word & Void series as a distant prequel to Shannara. I’m currently listening to the second book in the series, but wanted to tell you about the first one.

The story takes place on a Fourth of July weekend in a small town in Illinois. A fourteen-year-old girl named Nest lives near a park where a magical forest creature teaches her about taking care of the park and staying away from the Feeders that thrive on the fears and vulnerabilities of their human victims.

Nest knows she has magic, and knows that none of her band of close friends can see the Feeders. She protects them as much as she is able but much more dangerous magic is on its way. The demon of the title soon arrives, as does a Knight of the Word, and the Word and the Void have a showdown that includes Nest.

I won’t spoil the story by telling you too much, but I think it’s fair to warn you about one scene that matches the supernatural brutality of a Steven King novel. Brooks describes the gruesome death of a human that the demon has seduced into doing his bidding. If you’re a parent wondering if this story is a good fit for your child, I wanted to give you let you know about that part.

The other aspect of the Word & Void drama is its remarkable parallels to our modern world. The Word is order and the Void is chaos. In this divided world of 2026, as our social media rewards outrage and fear, this fantasy world offers us a staging ground of the many possible outcomes. It feels very current and very real.

I recommend it highly.

TTFN

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Having ended on a dark note above, I’ll lighten the tone with another cartoon from The New Yorker and the caption I submitted for their weekly contest:

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