Scott Holleran

3 weeks ago | scottholleran.substack.com | Scott Holleran

Growing up in Chicagoland, I learned about the urgency of money, business and finance from broadcast journalist Terry Savage. After I discovered the meaning of money from Ayn Rand upon reading Atlas Shrugged at the age of 18—as an aspiring teen-aged writer and dancer motivated to connect with those in the press and arts whom I thought might be able to grasp the novel—I cold called Miss Savage at a TV station out of curiosity.

1 month ago | scottholleran.substack.com | Scott Holleran

After attending my dearest friend’s 90th birthday party, I learned that screenwriter and director Robert Benton died on Mother’s Day at the age of 92. Today’s news is so shallow, flimsy, compartmentalized and devoid of what matters that news of his death had escaped my notice. This obituary skims the surface. I’ll write with greater clarity and purpose in the future. I met, knew and worked with Robert Benton, who became an admirer of my fiction writing.

1 month ago | scottholleran.substack.com | Scott Holleran

Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss, (2005, Scribner) by David Kessler and death and dying pioneer Elisabeth Kübler-Ross—the co-author’s last book before she died—packs power and insight into a cogent book. Just because this is not easy reading, and I write this as one in grief who grieves for a lost loved one, doesn’t mean it’s not essential to read. The book is packed with wisdom.

1 month ago | scottholleran.substack.com | Scott Holleran

The first American pope was elected this week by cardinals at the Vatican in Rome. Chicago priest Robert Prevost also became the world’s first pope born in Chicago. Pope Leo the 14th is 69 years old. Having recently written a short story (“Sesame Flanagan”) which debuted in Classic Chicago magazine in which the title character appeals to the pope for justice—and is ex-communicated—I appreciate the irony.

1 month ago | shortstoriesbyscottholleran.substack.com | Scott Holleran

Woman is the focus of my spring trilogy for Classic Chicago magazine. These three stories center upon characters that drive the plot. In “Deal With God,” a woman who is in love with her husband during dystopian conflict—he’s a top soldier who’s defying the state in an explosive standoff—runs toward him until she is downed with a single gunshot fired by her husband. This is how the story begins. Her private pact with the one she loves forms the essence of this love story between a man and a woman.