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Author: michaeldevault

When the World Comes to an End.

“For english, press one. Para espaniol, pruhuhumini numero dos.” One. “Thank you for calling AppleCare Customer Support Help Line. Please speak the name of the product for which you need support.” iBook. “Okay. I can help you with that.” (New Voice) “We estimate your hold time will be approximately 1,477,826.42110 minutes.” Oh boy here goes…
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A Day in the Life of a Hardened Criminal.

Until today I had very little sympathy for those people who find themselves living in jail because of breaking the law. For years, I ignored a friend of mine, a former police officer, who said that he gave up law enforcement and moved to another state because, in Louisiana, he “couldn’t drive to work without…
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The Stuff of Human Drama. (Or, Oh God Oh God We’re All Going to Die!)

Saturday evening, I and my roommate (an Atmospheric Sciences major) began watching CNN and the Weather Channel religiously, anxious for a finalized storm track. Sunday, we began preparing to house his parents, his little brother, and their two dogs indefinitely. His parents didn’t think they were going to flee as of Saturday morning. They arrived…
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Cardinal Sins. (Or: Things not to do when writing.)

If you’ve ever wondered why so many books you read seem so similar and thought that it was just you, or your taste in literature, or the fact that you only read one certain genre, take heart; it’s not just you. A sad fact of human literary existence is that books are all similar. The…
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An Ode to the Idylls of the 4th. (OR: To write or to barbecue…)

That is the question. Whether tis nobler to entertain one’s friends on the Bayou, or to take to the keyboard against a sea of blank pages and, by opposing, fill them. I found myself in a very interesting dilemma on Thursday. At work (I am production manager and designer for a sign company), my employer…
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Nothing is ever as it seems. (Or….So your daughter has a blog…)

I have a blog. Perhaps you have a blog. It seems these days that everyone has a blog. So that my daughter has a blog should have come as no surprise. After all, she’s 13 and lives on the internet (albeit in a variety of post-modern chat personae). Still, though, it isn’t what one expects…
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Life, or something like it.

Being a writer, I understand the need for universiality, that feeling that the movie’s main message somehow applies to the lives of every family member. “Life As a House?” No problem. For the divorced couple it is about reconcilation. For a terminal or chronic patient, hope and living in the face of death. Teenagers? The…
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Dating in the new millennium. (Or….Why I Predict the Human Race Will Disappear Within Three Generations)

So. There I was, sitting with my daughter in the restaurant, chatting. I mentioned something about something incidental and, like sometimes happens, the girl behind the bar chimed in. And that was okay. I’d talked to her many times before. After all, I’ve only been going to her restaurant since it opened. I’ve always enjoyed…
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Non-Fiction

Places I’ve Written For Currently Appearing: Eclectica Magazine: “Finding Machu Picchu” – an essay about my life-long friendship with the writer Maude Files Zimmer. BayouLife Magazine: My current “regular” writing gig, where I cover anything from food and the arts to movie stars and musicians. Other Publications: The Atlasphere: An online community and magazine for fans of…
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When the good people of Cranston, Texas, learn that a hometown boy has been killed in Iraq, they set about mounting a proper welcome for their fallen hero. But nobody thinks to ask the boyʼs reclusive father if such a memorial service is wanted, much less welcome. Not one to make waves, Joe Morton goes…
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