"How to Dodge a Cannonball" is a 2025 novel by Jamaican-American writer Dennard Dayle, and is a black comedy set in the Civil War. It follows the wartime career of Anders, a teenage flag twirler that pretends to be black as he fights in an all-black regiment, and as he gets swept up not just in the war, but in a series of tangentially related conspiracies.

Several comparisons have been made to Catch-22, and Slaughterhouse Five is another obvious comparison. I myself was reminded of Candide, as our hapless and innocent protagonist is swept from one adventure to another. And since this is a book by a black writer writing in 2025, despite the Civil War setting, there are actually topical allusions to current events, with the Civil War era being mostly a backdrop. In fact, while the beginning of the book focuses on the typical blood and mud suffering common to Civil War narratives, the book is not merely a pastiche of what we all know from Ken Burns documentaries, but

American actor (1955-2022). He was born in Westbury, New York, and moved to Westport, Connecticut when he was 11. Conroy's father was an alcoholic who attempted suicide while Kevin was a teenager, and his brother struggled for much of his life with schizophrenia. Kevin lived with a friend during his last year in high school. He moved to New York City in 1973 and earned a scholarship to attend the drama division at Juilliard. He studied under John Houseman and

Happy Birthday to me. I am 47 today.

It is genuinely hard to sum up the richness of my life right now, the depth of experience, and the weird ideas I have for the future. I'm setting up goals and having dreams in ways that I would never have allowed myself to do before. I'm doing the work of it all in tandem, attempting to break up older patterns that are holding my back, or at least crying about the parts that are