A camp for kids like The Greatest Show's Teddy Liszak, only real.

“A tattoo is something you get on your skin because it means something to you. A scar you get because something happened,” he said. “It’s a better story — it isn’t something you can control, but you get through it and you handle it."

Read The Washington Posts's story about a camp for kids with burn scars here.

A friend recommends...

Ron Tanner is a wonderful writer (check out his book covers, below) and a good friend who recently recommended The Greatest Show to online readers of the literary journal West Branch, published by Bucknell University.

Ron's close read of the stories is spot on, and he revealed things about the book I hadn't even known. That happens. Writers are not the sole masters of our material. Readers always get the final say. Which is part of the fun.

Art talk on video

... from the Maryland State Arts Council.

'Show' places in six-way tie behind Louise Erdrich

The Greatest Show was recently named one of six finalists for the Paterson Prize for Fiction, an award won this year by Louise Erdrich and her novel, The Round House. The Round House also won the National Book Award, proving once again that Erdrich is, well, phenomenal. For years I've been teaching her first book, Love Medicine, to students at Towson University, and every time the book astonishes me in fresh ways. I'll be glad to open The Round House, too.

The other finalists for the Paterson Prize include
• All That I Am (HarperCollins) by Anna Funder
• Girlchild (FSG) by Tupelo Hassman
• The Collective (W.W. Norton) by Don Lee
• The Lower River (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by Paul Theroux
• Fat Girl, Terrestrial (University of Alabama Press) by Kellie Wells.

The Paterson Prize is awarded by the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in New Jersey.

Thank God we are always surprised

The Maryland State Arts Council asked me to give a keynote talk for its reception honoring artists who'd received grants from the agency this year. They didn't tell me I'd have to follow Blessed Sheriff, a 15-year-old poetry-reciting phenom.


But follow Blessed I did, and true to my name, (which, you'll recall is Downs as in downer), I chose to meditate on what it means to celebrate art and artists in a time of Boston Marathon bombings and Sandy Hook shootings. Baltimore Fishbowl, an energetic news site that I love to read, published my remarks.

If you have only time for one, choose Blessed. She's something.