on Career Authors:

It’s been a rough couple of years and many of us are simply exhausted. Outrage fatigue, pandemic fatigue, crisis fatigue—all manner of fatigue has besieged us. To the point where all we feel lately is numb.

At least that’s how I’ve been feeling. And then I watched two films in a row that made me feel something—something good, for a change—The Tender Bar and Belfast. I won’t say much about them except that they made me feel better about being human. They made me laugh and cry and ponder the nature of life and love and legacy—in a good way.

What they had in common—besides excellent writing and acting and directing—was their humanity. These were stories with heart. In all our focus on high-concept and plot and character and marketability and discoverability, we writers can sometimes lose sight of the one quality that readers find irresistible, and perhaps need now more than ever: heart.