I started writing a news column for The Palm Beach Post in December of 1991, providing daily commentary about the WIlliam Kennedy Smith trial in West Palm Beach. The first day I did a poor Jimmy ...

Okay, I’ll be completely honest with y’all — I have no idea what I’m going to write today. Usually, when I have no idea what to write, I write about writing. And it’s not like the general concept of ...

Let me give you the inside scoop on writing this newspaper column. In September 2008 I e-mailed Tiffany Kjos, the Foothills Star editor, about my interest in writing a monthly column. She called me ...

Twenty years! I’ve been writing this column for 20 years. As I said back on the 15th anniversary, “except for teaching, that’s the longest time I’ve ever devoted to a single activity.” And I’ve ...

Opinion writing is famous for a host of microlabels — columns, editorials, op-eds, guest essays, letters to the editor and even cartoons. While each of these pieces serves a distinct purpose, their ...

The upcoming week marks this column’s 18th anniversary. I almost can’t believe it. It feels like far longer. It almost feels like I’ve been writing it since … “forever ago.” From church signs to chalk ...

From Nathan Smith's, "White Lightning," Fall '97 From Nathan Smith's, "White Lightning," Fall '97 Last night, at 3 a.m. in the quiet of my loft, I fell asleep with my pen and journal in hand. This ...

February is my anniversary month. No, not the month when my wife Terri and I got married. That was last month. She has put up with me, my hunting dogs, wet and stinky hunting and fishing clothes, ...

I have been thinking about science and suffering. I became a scientist, in part, because I wanted to help people. (The other part was avoiding the draft.) Instead, I now find myself administering ...

If an alien were to stand in the middle of the Quad, or maybe in the center of Lenoir Dining Hall, they’d hear some of the most exquisite diction of our species. Someone is “geekin” on the escalator.