Charles Ota Heller

I began reading a novel called The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010) as part of my research on World War II, as I edit my memoir of life as a “hidden Child” during Nazi occupation. Only a few pages in, I was totally absorbed in this wonderful love story. Judging from her…

It has been more than a month since my last blog. The reason? I underestimated the amount of work that would be required to get my book, Out of Prague: A Memoir of Survival, Denial, and Triumph, translated into Czech. The publisher, Mlada Fronta, asked me to make a few changes so that the book would be…

Sue and I returned last night from our annual reunion of Oklahoma State University friends. On alternate years, we meet at the “cabin” of my college roommate, Don Gafford, and his wife, Sondra. Their home is located in spectacular country — the High Sierras — in the least populated county in the state of California. Sierra County…

After parting company with my literary agent several weeks ago, I implemented a new strategy for getting my book — Out of Prague: A Memoir of Survival, Denial, and Triumph — published. Following the example of several other first-time American authors of books dealing with the Second World War and/or the Holocaust, I decided to try to get my…

Everyone else in America is writing about the LeBron James debacle, and I can’t resist chiming in. Up front, I must say that I love basketball too much to be able to watch the game played by today’s National Basketball Association. There was a time — that of Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson,…

My last blog, “Goodbye, Big Twelve!” lamented the death of “my” collegiate conference. Just a few short days ago, it looked as though the top football and basketball conference in the nation was about to dissolve, following the departure of the Universities of Colorado and Nebraska. But, not so fast! When the “big dog” of…

How sad that money drives college sports — particularly football and basketball! The Big Ten (which is really an “Eleven”) has its own TV network and, consequently, millions of dollars in revenues. At the same time, it is very weak in the two big revenue sports. In football, it has two powers and nine also-rans and, in…

It seems that many of my writer friends are busy publishing these days. In recent blogs, I’ve talked about books by Lillian Lincoln Lambert, as well as Jim Rosapepe and Sheilagh Kast. This week, I finished a provocative book by one of my newest friends, Peter Hruby, a distinguished historian. Peter and I have a couple of…

I’ve been derelict in that I’ve failed to blog for an entire month. The main reasons: I’ve been attending board meetings, writing — and reading (o.k., I admit to the fact that I’ve played a little golf, too). Interestingly, most of the books I’ve read recently have been written by friends. I’ve reported on a couple…

One of my favorite writers, Anna Quindlen, says that “the stages of a writer’s professional life are marked not by a name on the office door, but a name in ink.” For some 30 years — as CEO of two software companies and later head of a nonprofit organization — I had my “name on…