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The Works of Zachary Robert Long

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Month: January 2025

Against the Grain: Four Authors that Transgress Grammar
by Zachary Robert Long (1766 words, estimated reading time: 9 minutes)

Posted on January 26, 2025January 26, 2025 by Zack Long

“Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind” – Douglas MacArthur     Grammar is the mortar of the English language we use when building meaning through the use of words, sentences, and paragraphs. For many people, it is such a powerful tool as to be…

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An aerial view of a hospital situated along an encroaching tree-line

A Trick of the Light
by Zachary Robert Long (2026 words, estimated reading time: 10 minutes)

Posted on January 15, 2025January 15, 2025 by Zack Long

The woods are darker now than they were this time last week. This disturbs her. Something she can’t quite put a finger on. The way it feels like every thing is always changing? Getting away from her? She wants it all to stay the same, her deepest wish is to freeze time. To hold her…

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Every novel is like this, desperation, a frustrated attempt to save something of the past. Except that it still has not been established whether it is the novel that prevents man from forgetting himself or the impossibility of forgetfulness that makes him write novels.

— José Saramago

Recent Posts

  • A Good Mother
    by Zachary Robert Long (1049 words, estimated reading time: 5 minutes)
    She made airplane noises while balancing the slime-covered spoon as it made its descent, begging for a landing strip, but when he refused to open his...
  • Obfuscation: The Hidden of Art
    by Zachary Robert Long (1211 words, estimated reading time: 6 minutes)
    The mystery genre can largely be divided into three categories:  Who did it?, How do it?, and Why do it?   Each category requires the author...
  • My Son in the Sun
    by Zachary Robert Long (2837 words, estimated reading time: 13 minutes)
    Bills Hicks had a bit about how he didn’t understand what people saw in the beach. It’s where water meets land. What’s so special about that?...
  • Where Silence Meets Speed
    by Zachary Robert Long (2500 words, estimated reading time: 12 minutes)
    I don’t trust electric cars. And no, before you ask, it isn’t because of Musk and the endless litany of issues with Tesla. Fiat, Lotus, Hyundai,...
  • Talking Teapots: A Wallace & Gromit Treatise
    by Zachary Robert Long (1279 words, estimated reading time: 7 minutes)
    When Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) was released onto Netflix this January, my family had to watch. It had been nearly twenty years since...

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