Monthly archive

July 2026

Two Hats in Tepoztlán

July 23, 2026
Xoco loved her white hat. Not because it matched her embroidered blouse, stitched over countless evenings by the soft shine of a paraffin lamp, nor because it kept the sharp afternoon sun from her eyes. She loved it simply because it was a gift and she wore it because, thirty-eight…

The Quixotic Sand-Windmill Compromise

July 23, 2026
The blazing sun beat down on the castle-less shoreline, a cruel mockery of the joy it once brought Don Quixote. Since it had recently become illegal to build sandcastles in Spain, as a result of some baffling municipal decree, naturally, our hidalgo-knight-errant decided to happily tilt at sand windmills...…

The Ghosts-upon-Avon (Part 1)

‘We shall never know whether Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Donne, Sir William Stanley, Anne Hathaway, even Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen herself, or anyone else wrote Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Still, if they did not, they missed a great, unique opportunity to…

In Retrospect

July 20, 2026
Arthur J. was not a fast driver. In fact, he was one of those who treated 30 mph in a 40 mph zone as a daring, adrenaline-fuelled gamble with fate. He liked predictability. He liked his hands firmly at ten and two…

The Indie Song of the Cicadas

July 19, 2026
There is a tragic beauty in this literary ecosystem. To spend months or years crafting a universe, knowing it may only ever be read by a handful of people, perhaps family, a few loyal friends, and a stranger across an ocean, is a pure, unadulterated form of devotion…
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About Me

Former diplomat and globetrotter, Dan Costinas is a versatile contemporary writer, translator, and editor. A true polyglot, he has authored and contributed to several dozen books spanning mainly fiction, essays, aphorisms, reviews and criticism, journalism, and poetry.

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Books of Our Continent

From the quiet shelves of forty-four national archives and ancient university libraries to the cosy corners of independent bookstores and modest home…

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