A Review of Kulkuri (Vagabond) and Other Stories by Mark Munger

I lived in Puerto Rico back in 1978-79. During that time I did prison ministry once a week, which brought me into contact with a lot of people who had very interesting stories. Upon returning to the States, I pulled together a number of these into an outline for a novel. Writing fiction seemed like a good way to explore and reveal people's experiences that were very different from my own. 

I begin this review with that anecdote because I suspect that as a former trial attorney and district judge here in the Northland, author Mark Munger had intimate exposure to a hundred times as many lives and stories as I, many of them startling and unusual that would be had to imagine.

Kulkuri (Vagabond) and Other Short Stories, is Munger's second collection of short fiction. Published in 2020 by Cloquet River Press, I found his book at the Duluth Public Library on a shelf featuring local authors. It wasn't long before I drew two early conclusions. Mark Munger is a serious writer. He's also an impressive wordsmith. 

Though he has been primarily a novelist, he is likewise adept at short-form fiction. Someone once described the. novel as a short story in baggy clothes. I liked that. The best short stories are tight, compact and pack a punch. Munger has clearly honed his craft and has good instincts as regards pacing.

He is also not afraid to takes chances and try new things. There's no formula in his storycrafting. The singular thread in this stories is a sense of place, Northern Minnesota, with its geography, history and people.

As a writer I pay close attention to opening sentences, whether they be stories or novels. The first story here opens with "I stand thigh deep in the cold embrace of the Brule seeking forgiveness." Clearly something has happened. And you're invited in. It reveals a bit about the narrator as well, a fisherman.

Kulkuri (Vagabond), the title story and second in this collection, begins, "They call me Electric Jerry but my given name is Jorma." The manner in which Munger becomes his characters is striking and uncanny, especially in this story. 

Hemingway's Mistress, the third story, opens with "It started when I fell in love with his words." This story veers in a direction you don't expect, but how can it not? 

Though the stories are fiction, one wonders how many portions are secretly fragments of a self-portrait. This sentence here could summarize how I myself became determined to excel as a writer. 

The centerpiece is a novellas called The Angle. Again, the opening sentence does a masterful job of pulling you in while establishing a sense of place. "She lived in the Northwest Angle; that little protrusion of Minnesota shoving itself like a bully's thumb into Canada's eye." It's a tragic love story with some vivid, carefully crafted moments that one wants to revisit just to see how he pulled them off.

The latter batch of stories--seven in all--include two award winners, Isle Royale and Threshold. Some of the stories draw upon his Finnish American heritage. Other provide readers with a true sense of the challenges of our region and the people who inhabit it.

It's apparent from the quantity of books he's published that Mark Munger is both passionate about and dedicated to his craft. When not writing, Munger enjoys hunting, fishing, skiing, and contributing book reviews and interviews to his website, www.cloquetriverpress.com, and the Finnish American Reporter. 

This link to his Amazon authors page with give you a pretty good snapshot of his impressive output. If you prefer to buy local, Zenith Books in West Duluth will happily order books for you.

EdNote: Kulkuri mean Vagabond in Finnish.

Song of the Matrix: An AI Collaboration (Version 4.0)

On Monday I shared Extracts from a Writer's Notebook. On Tuesday I posted a short story generated by Grok, an LLM created by xAI titled Song of the Matrix: An AI Collaboration (Vignette Version). In this experiment there were two more iteration, culminating in an expanded version in which we meet a second character who becomes part of the story.  

My aim is to show how my handwritten notes from before the advent of social media and the AI era can blend with modern AI algorithms to create a genuine collaborative outcome.

The Song of the Matrix (Version 4.0)

He often felt as though his life were balanced on stilts made of splintered wood, with a mind whose feet teetered under the weight of a thousand rickety tensions. It wasn’t madness, exactly, but a constant pressure—too many rules, too many judgments, too many voices ringing through the corridors of memory.

This evening he ducked into The Power Café, a narrow place on the corner that had once been a tailor’s shop. Now it boasted a slogan in chalk script on the sandwich board outside: The Magic of Northern Italy. Inside, the reality was day-old biscotti and an espresso machine that hissed like an asthmatic.

Above the counter, a sun-faded poster drooped: Waisted Minds. A waist is a terrible thing to mind. Beneath it, graffiti scrawled by some anonymous wit demanded: Why are Texans so Austintatious?

He smiled grimly at the joke. It was just the sort of thing she would have laughed at.

He slid into a booth. Around him, voices hummed with the same desperate cadence. A sharp-suited man at the counter asked, too loudly, “If I’m so successful, why am I so lonely?” A pair of students argued over credit cards, one insisting, “I’m gonna max out my Monkey card,” as if that were rebellion. At another table a trio quoted advertising gurus like preachers citing scripture: The greatest sin in advertising is to be boring. “And the second greatest sin,” one added, “is not agreeing with Ogilvie.”

He pulled out his notebook. The pages were cluttered with fragments: The Four Atomic Sons of Madame Fauvre. Freestyle Frost Flicker—cleaning ice off windows. A single word: Opinionitis.

Yes, that was the sickness of the age. The inability to hear without judging. He remembered the P.I.N. Formula from de Bono—Positive, Interesting, Negative. But no one waited for the interesting anymore. Everyone lunged straight for the negative. To be effective, he thought, one must tame the value judgments, suspend the reflex to condemn. A mature mind listens first.

But who was listening?

He closed the notebook and left. Outside, the streetlamps flickered, frost spreading across their glass like silver lace. He whispered the only benediction he trusted: How to get blessed—be a blessing.

A voice startled him. “Talking to yourself, or to the universe?”

A young woman leaned against the lamppost, smoking. Her coat was too thin for the cold, her hair cut short in uneven lengths, as if she’d done it herself. She smiled wryly.

“Maybe both,” he said.

“Lucky universe,” she replied. “Most people don’t bother.”

They fell into step as he walked. She didn’t ask where he was going, and he didn’t offer. After a few blocks she said, “You look like a man who keeps notebooks. Am I right?”

He hesitated, then showed her the one in his pocket. She flipped it open, skimming the fragments. “‘A man who needs nothing can afford to risk everything.’ I like that.” She tapped the page. “But do you believe it?”

“Some days,” he said. “Other days I need everything and can risk nothing.”

She laughed—not unkindly. “That sounds about right. I once wrote: Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Then I realized I was quoting someone else, not myself. Isn’t that strange? How other people’s words get stuck in your blood?”

Her candor knocked the air from his lungs. He thought of her, the one he’d lost—a woman bound by rules like chains. He said nothing.

The girl must have noticed. “Sorry. I say things too bluntly. It’s a flaw.”

“No,” he murmured. “It’s… familiar.”

They walked in silence until they reached the river. The water was black, its surface rimmed with ice.

“You know,” she said, tossing her cigarette into the current, “the footprints we leave—half the time they’re not even ours. They’re for whoever comes next.”

He looked at her sharply. The echo of Aldrin’s words startled him, as if the universe had been listening after all.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She grinned. “Depends on the day. Tonight it’s Clara. Tomorrow it might be something else.”

“Clara,” he repeated, testing it. “Do you ever feel like you’re living inside a song? One you can’t quite hear but that keeps pulling you forward?”

She tilted her head. “All the time.”

He smiled for the first time in weeks. The Song of the Matrix was no longer a solitary hum. Someone else could hear it too.

And for the first time in months, he wasn’t just listening. He was accompanied.

# # # #

"The Song of the Matrix" is a collaborative work of fiction. 

The Uses of Failure: Lessons from Patricia Hampl at the 1985 Robert Wright Writers Conference

In 1985, the Fourth Annual Robert Wright Writer’s Conference at Mankato State University welcomed Patricia Hampl, an acclaimed American memoirist, essayist, and poet, as its keynote speaker. Known for her lyrical prose and introspective explorations of memory, identity, and spirituality, Hampl captivated attendees with her reflections on the craft of writing, drawing deeply from her own experiences. Her address, titled “The Uses of Failure,” offered a candid and practical perspective on how setbacks can shape a writer’s journey. 

I had attended the conference with the late John Prin, who had mentored me as a fledgling wanna-be writer. After having failed as a missionary, working at an orphanage in Mexico for close to a year, I began thinking more deeply and praying about what my life was really about. A year or so before I felt called to be a writer, which is a much longer story.

I met John at a writer's group in Eden Prairie, a suburb of the Twin Cities. We were fast friends. The Mankato State conference was the second we attended together. Interestingly, both of us were quite familiar with failure--John had spent ten years trying to make it as a screenwriter in Hollywood--so Ms. Hampl's keynote talk had something for both of us.

This weekend I found a notebook from that conference. Using Google Lens I was able to convert my handwriting to digital text. Below is an article summarizing the notes I took during Ms. Hampl's talk, weaving her insights together with the wisdom she imparted to a small auditorium full of aspiring writers.

Embracing Failure as a Writer 

Patricia Hampl, born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1946, has spent her career weaving personal memory with cultural and historical threads. By 1985, she had been writing for two decades, earning recognition for her memoir A Romantic Education (1981), which explored her Czech-Irish heritage and helped elevate memoir as a serious literary genre. At the conference, Hampl shared that her path to success was not linear but marked by failures that ultimately fueled her growth as a writer. “Writing, like love,” she said, “is something you give expecting nothing.” This mindset, she argued, is essential for committing to the work itself, rather than chasing external rewards.

Hampl outlined three pivotal failures that shaped her career, each offering lessons in resilience, self-validation, and clarity.

Failure 1: The Dream of the Concert Pianist

Hampl’s first failure was her childhood ambition to become a concert pianist—a dream that ended in “total failure.” Yet this setback led her to writing, a discovery that became her true calling. The lesson? Failure can redirect us to paths we might never have explored otherwise. For Hampl, the collapse of one dream opened the door to another, revealing writing as her medium for self-expression.

Failure 2: The Sting of Rejection

The late John Prin (L) and myself
during an annual meet-up in Hinckley, 2020.

Hampl recounted the emotional devastation of a rejection from The New Yorker, which left her creatively paralyzed for two years. She admitted to being unprepared for the “inflationary effects of success”—the pressure to maintain a certain standard after early achievements. This experience taught her a crucial lesson: writers must find validation from within. “I don’t care if I can’t do it well,” she said, “I just have to write.” By learning to trust the intrinsic value of her work, Hampl overcame the paralyzing fear of external judgment.

Failure 3: The Perils of Inflated Expectations

Her third failure came when a major magazine commissioned her to write a piece on Sylvia Plath. The pressure to produce something extraordinary led to what Hampl called an “inflating situation,” where lofty expectations hindered her ability to write authentically. This experience underscored the importance of understanding what rejection means—not as a verdict on one’s worth, but as an opportunity to refine one’s craft and perspective.

Practical Strategies for Sustaining the Writing Life

Hampl didn’t just dwell on failure; she offered practical advice for sustaining oneself as a writer. Her suggestions were grounded in simplicity and self-care, emphasizing the importance of staying connected to the joy of writing:

1. Relax: Let go of perfectionism to free your creative energy.
2. Take long walks: Physical movement can clear the mind and spark inspiration.
3. Surround yourself with supportive friends: A community that believes in your writing can provide emotional sustenance.
4. Read voraciously: Immersing yourself in others’ work fuels creativity and perspective.
5. Embrace diversity: Allow yourself to explore varied interests and experiences to enrich your writing.
6. Resist the “mystery” of marketing: Focus on the craft, not the pressure to sell your work.

Hampl’s advice was pragmatic, urging writers to prioritize clarity over the pursuit of masterpieces. “You don’t put things down on paper to produce masterpieces,” she said, “but to gain clarity.” This perspective reframes writing as an act of discovery, not a race to perfection.

The Inner Peace of Writing

Hampl’s talk was peppered with insights that resonated beyond the page. Quoting Ettie Hillimson, she shared, “The fear of missing out is what keeps us out of things.” For writers, this fear can manifest as a fixation on external validation or unattainable standards, which stifles creativity. Instead, Hampl advocated for keeping standards low enough to maintain motivation, avoiding the paralysis of perfectionism. “Every time I get high-falootin’ about my writing, I crash,” she confessed, highlighting the dangers of bloated ambitions.

She also emphasized the value of “going away” for sustained immersion in one’s work. Whether it’s a physical retreat or a mental space carved out for writing, this dedicated time fosters the clarity and focus needed to grow. Hampl echoed Hillimson again: “The more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.” For Hampl, writing is not just a craft but a path to inner peace, a way to navigate the chaos of life through reflection and creation.

Failure as a Catalyst for Growth

Her keynote was a reminder that failure is not the opposite of success but a vital part of it. By sharing her own struggles—failed dreams, crushing rejections, and inflated expectations—she showed that setbacks are not endpoints but opportunities for growth. Her message to the writers at Mankato State University was clear: embrace failure, learn from it, and let it guide you toward clarity and authenticity.

For aspiring writers, Patricia Hampl’s insights remain timeless. 

Photos: LaVerne Harrell Clark, 1980 (top) and 1995.

Song of the Matrix: An AI Collaboration (Vignette Version)

Yesterday I shared a batch of Extracts from a Writer's Notebook. For the past couple years I've been experimenting with AI, or specifically Large Language Models (LLMs).  
>>EdNote: LLMs are a specific kind of AI trained on massive amounts of text data to generate and understand natural language. All LLMs are AI, but not all AI are LLMs. Or, to put it another way, all cocker spaniels are dogs, but not all dogs are cocker spaniels.<<

Anyways, I shared my writers notebook post in order to set up a couple follow-ups to show the degree to which LLMs have advanced. First, I fed my notebook extracts into Grok, an LLM created by xAI, and asked Grok to create a story using all these fragments. The result was something of a mashup that included everything but didn't flow as well as I might have liked. Next, after a few suggestions, the story was tightened and more satisfying. Here is the result, with a few minor edits.

The Song of the Matrix

He walked with a mind whose feet teetered under the weight of a thousand rickety tensions. Each step seemed borrowed from gravity, each thought a fragile splinter.

At dusk, he entered The Power Café. The place pretended at elegance—“The Magic of Northern Italy” promised on the chalkboard—but inside, the mood was thin. A slogan peeling from the wall declared: A waist is a terrible thing to mind. Below it, graffiti taunted: Why are Texans so Austintatious?

He sat alone. Around him, voices hummed with the same desperate cadence. One man declared, “If I’m so successful, why am I so lonely?” Another joked about maxing out his Monkey card. They laughed, but the laughter was brittle, stereotypes from pre-fabricated lexicons. The great battle for significance, he thought, is really just a battle against irrelevance.

On the table, he opened his notebook. He scrawled a title: The Four Atomic Sons of Madame Fauvre. Below it, a half-formed product idea: Freestyle Frost Flicker—something to clean the ice from windows. Then a single word: Opinionitis.

He lingered over it. The disease of the age, he mused: the inability to hear without judging, to think without condemning. He recalled the formula of Dr. de Bono—Positive, Interesting, Negative. If only people could suspend their judgments long enough to notice the interesting. A mature mind learns to wait, he thought.

Someone quoted David Ogilvie nearby—The greatest sin in advertising is to be boring. Another added, “The second greatest sin is not agreeing with Ogilvie.” They chuckled. He didn’t. He thought instead of creativity and courage, of content and form, of how a man who needs nothing can afford to risk everything.

His blood, it seemed, had turned to wine long ago, and it sang through his veins with nowhere to pour itself. He remembered Jimmy Johnson’s words to his team after the Super Bowl: This feeling of love that you share right now you will have the rest of your lives. He envied that permanence.

Instead, he carried the melancholy of all things done. Aldrin’s phrase had haunted him ever since the astronaut returned from the moon. The footprints we left were not ours but for all mankind. Yet his own footprints felt erased, unclaimed.

The thought of her surfaced. She had lived by inner rules so strict they bound her tighter than chains. In the end, she had chosen permanence over pain. Suicide, they said, was a permanent solution to a temporary problem. But who was he to call her problems temporary?

He closed his notebook. Leaving the café and stepped into the night. The street lamps flickered, frost blooming on their glass. For a moment, he whispered a prayer, almost a vow: How to get blessed—be a blessing.

And then he walked on, the song of the Matrix still playing, a melody heard only by those willing to listen without judgment.

* * * * *

Tomorrow we will add a second character. 

Thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment.

Extracts from a Writer's Notebook

Writers’ notebooks are personal repositories where authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald jotted down ideas, observations, character sketches, plot fragments, and vivid descriptions. Such notebooks serve as creative incubators, capturing fleeting thoughts and inspirations for later development into stories, novels, or essays. They allow writers to experiment with language, refine their voice, and store raw material—dialogue snippets, settings, or metaphors—that might spark a masterpiece. 

Years ago I read Charles W. Conn's book of pithy one-liners called The Pointed Pen. He was sharp. Inspired by the memory of this book (I'd read it while visiting Coatepec on the outskirts of Xalapa, Mexico) I decided to comb through my own journal notebooks to see what kind of gems I might find. Unfortunately, there was more pulp than pith, more bones than meat, more rocks than gems. 

While cleaning out some drawers this weekend I came across a couple of sheets of those notes and decided to post them here. 

* * * * *

A mind whose feet teetered under the weight of a thousand rickety tensions.

What do you demean by that? (Peter O)

How'd they get so jaded?

Waisted Minds slogan: A Waist is a terrible thing to mind.

"Red is the soil of Burma, Red also are its cliffs." (from The Harp of Burma)

The great battle for significance is a battle against irrelevance.

"If I'm so successful, why am I so lonely?"

How to get blessed: Be a blessing.

Why are Texans so Austintatious?

Song of the Matrix  (EdNote: This was 10 years before the movie.)

The Four Atomic Sons of Madame Fauvre [title]

Jimmy Johnson's Message to his team after Super Bowl Victory: "This feeling of love that you share right now you will have the rest of your lives."

A man who needs nothing can afford to risk everything. (8-28-88)

Freestyle Frost Flicker --> Name of Product for cleaning ice off windows

"The melancholy of all things done." (Buzz Aldrin, after returning from moon)

"The footprints we left on the moon were not ours but were for all mankind." (Aldrin)

His blood turned to wine and sang through his veins.

Knitting his brows, he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as one who utters mystic nonsense.

"I'm gonna max out my Monkey card." (newspeak example)

The Power Cafe (name for a restaurant)

The Magic of Northern Italy

They were stereotypes, cardboard cutouts, punched out from pre-fabricated liberal lexicons. 

Is this man really capable of conceiving a penetrating question?

Opinionitis

P.I.N. Formula (Dr. Edward de Bono)
P = Positive aspect
I = Interesting aspect
N = Negative aspect

Exploit the possibilities in an idea.

Point of View: A particular way of assigning priorities to the factors involved in a situation.

To be effective we must learn how to tame our value judgments. We cannot listen and hear if we are always making snap judgments. A mature mind becomes more effective when it is able to suspend value judgments.

She lived a life encumbered by long sets of inner rules that bound her more tightly than chains.

Ogilvie said, "The greatest sin in advertising is to be boring."

The second greatest sin: Not agreeing with David Ogilvie

Creativity and courage to take risks...

Content and form...

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

* * * 

Keeping a notebook fosters discipline, sharpens observational skills, and preserves moments that might otherwise fade. The faintest ink outlasts the strongest memory. For Fitzgerald, his notes (e.g., The Crack-Up) reveal his process, blending raw creativity with meticulous craft, essential for any writer’s growth.

Imaginary Interviews: My Visit with Leo Tolstoy

In this imagined interview, I sat down with Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), the Russian literary giant whose novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina redefined the possibilities of fiction, and whose later philosophical and spiritual writings reshaped his life and influenced global thought. A man of profound contradictions, Tolstoy was both an aristocrat and a champion of the poor, a soldier turned pacifist, and a novelist who ultimately sought truth beyond art. Here, I explore the pivotal moments that drove his midlife transformation, his embrace of pacifism, and the roots of his enduring influence as a writer and thinker. Through Tolstoy’s own words, we glimpse his restless spirit, unyielding moral quest, and vision for a better world.

EN: Count Tolstoy, your novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina are considered masterpieces. How did your early life shape your path to becoming such an influential writer?

Leo Tolstoy: My early years were a tangle of privilege and pain. Born in 1828 to a noble family at Yasnaya Polyana, I was orphaned young—my mother died before I was two, my father when I was nine. That loss left a void, a hunger for meaning. I was a wild youth, prone to gambling, debauchery, and searching for purpose in all the wrong places—university, the army, society’s pleasures. Yet, those years in the Caucasus as a soldier and my travels exposed me to life’s raw edges: the courage of peasants, the brutality of war, the simplicity of nature. Writing became my way to wrestle with these truths. I poured my questions about life, love, and death into stories, striving to capture the chaos and beauty of human existence. My novels grew from that struggle to understand, to make sense of a world both glorious and flawed.

 

EN: In your fifties, you made the radical decision to release your serfs and renounce your estate. What prompted this dramatic shift in your life and values?

Leo Tolstoy: By my fifties, I was drowning in despair despite my wealth and fame. Anna Karenina was behind me, yet I felt empty, haunted by the question: What is the meaning of life? I saw the injustice of my aristocratic life—my comfort built on the toil of serfs, men and women no less human than I. My Christian awakening, not the Church’s dogma but Christ’s teachings, pierced me. In the Gospels, I found a call to simplicity, to love all as equals. Keeping serfs, owning vast lands while others starved—it was sin, plain and simple. In 1861, I’d supported the emancipation of serfs in Russia, but that wasn’t enough. I freed those on my estate and tried to give away my lands, though my family resisted. I could no longer live a lie, hoarding what belonged to all in God’s eyes.

EN: You served as a soldier in the Crimean War, yet later became a fervent pacifist. What led you to reject violence and advocate for nonresistance?

Leo Tolstoy: War scars the soul. In the Crimea, I saw men cut down, their lives snuffed out for empires’ games. I carried that weight, but it was my spiritual crisis in the 1870s that turned me fully against violence. Reading Christ’s words—“Resist not evil” and “Love your enemies”—I realized war and killing were an affront to God’s law. Violence begets violence, chaining humanity to suffering. My book The Kingdom of God Is Within You lays it out: true power lies in love, in refusing to harm another, even an enemy. I saw governments and armies as tools of oppression, not progress. Pacifism wasn’t weakness but strength—a radical trust in humanity’s capacity for good, guided by the divine spark within us all.

 

EN: Your works have inspired readers, writers, and thinkers worldwide, from Gandhi to modern novelists. How did you achieve such profound influence as a writer?

Leo Tolstoy: Influence was never my aim—truth was. I wrote to grapple with life’s questions, to hold a mirror to the human soul. War and Peace and Anna Karenina wove history, love, and morality into stories that felt alive because they came from my own struggles. I didn’t shy from showing people’s flaws, their contradictions, their search for meaning. Readers saw themselves in that. Later, my essays and moral writings—A Confession, What I Believe—spoke plainly to universal longings: purpose, justice, peace. I wrote for the peasant as much as the scholar, in a language raw and honest. If I influenced anyone, it’s because I dared to ask hard questions and live by the answers, however imperfectly.

EN: You faced criticism, even from your family, for your radical changes. How did you reconcile your ideals with the realities of living in a complex world?

Leo Tolstoy: Reconciliation was a daily battle. My wife, Sonya, bore the brunt of my choices—she managed our estate while I preached simplicity, a hypocrisy that pained me. I wanted to give everything away, but family duties tethered me. Critics called me a dreamer, a fool, yet I couldn’t unsee the truth: wealth and power corrupt. I strove to live simply, wearing peasant clothes, working the fields, but I was still a count, entangled in privilege. The struggle taught me humility—to act on truth as best I could, knowing perfection is God’s alone. I urged others to do the same: live your conscience, even if you stumble.

EN: If you could observe the modern world, what aspects of your teachings do you think are most needed today?

Leo Tolstoy: Your world chokes on greed, division, and endless wars. My teachings—simplicity, love, nonresistance—are cries for sanity. Live simply, free from the tyranny of possessions. See every soul as equal, whether prince or pauper, to heal your fractured societies. Above all, reject violence—your weapons grow deadlier, but peace is still the only path to true progress. Seek the kingdom of God within you, not in power or wealth. That inner truth can still redeem a world lost in noise.

 

EN: Any final words for our readers?

Leo Tolstoy: Life is a gift, but only if you seek its meaning. Question everything—your comforts, your society, your heart. Live by love, not force; by truth, not lies. The divine is within you, waiting to guide you to a life of purpose. Dare to follow it, no matter the cost, and you’ll find peace that no wealth can buy.

EN: Thank you again for this time together and your work to make this world a better place. 

* * * * *

Related

Imaginary Interview #1: A Visit with Artist Paul Klee  

https://ennyman.medium.com/imaginary-interviews-1-five-minutes-with-artist-paul-klee-a378aa96a2dd?sk=9467841105ad8239bbf5364b0174704d
Imaginary Interview #2: John S. Hall, the Blind Poet of Ritchie County

https://ennyman.medium.com/imaginary-interviews-2-john-s-hall-the-blind-poet-of-ritchie-county-5bddd0db5cd7?sk=071d23202a4673f2091abeaab1517499

Imaginary Interview #3: The Influential French Author Honore Balzac 

https://ennyman.medium.com/imaginary-interviews-3-the-influential-french-author-honoré-de-balzac-eec642f739cf?sk=20aa802f87d49f0cf5bcfc51e2475b72

Imaginary Interviews #5: A Visit wth George Fox, Founder of the Religious Society of Friends (a.k.a. Quakers)

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2025/08/imaginary-interviews-visit-wth-george.html