blog.jtr.name: jtr's blog

jtr (John Truscott Reese) writes personal essays (and slide decks) about travel, writing, whisky, and other pleasures.

• 
  2026-06-30

  A Plot Summary of the Bible

  Cliff's Notes of one of the most owned, least read books.

• 
  2026-05-31

  A Tour of My Clankosphere

  The software the clankers built me.

• 
  2026-04-30

  Nines are the Key to Repeating Decimals

  A crowd-pleasing mashup of elementary school math and calculus; unfamiliar facts about familiar math.

• 
  2026-04-25

  Grabbing My Blog and Going Home

  I’m moving off Medium to a blog platform I wrote: https://blog.jtr.name/. All the existing posts are also available at the new site.

• 
  2026-01-18

  Thirty Duck-sized Horses: a month of flash fiction

  How I spent November 2025 writing 30 pieces of flash fiction (under 1000 words each) and what I learned about creativity.

• 
  2024-07-26

  I finished the first draft of my novel

  How I commemorated the milestone of finishing the first draft of a novel I'd been working on for 22 years, and what happens next.

• 
  2023-08-04

  Appendix: Life of a Dram

  Who could have predicted distilled beer would taste so good? A beginning to end explanation of the whisky-making process.

• 
  2023-08-04

  I Paid to Shovel Barley

  A week of Whisky School at Springbank Distillery, with hands-on experience in every phase of production.

• 
  2023-04-18

  Raisedbywolves von Wolflike

  A reflection on the calibration of authorial references, and a case where it backfired.

• 
  2021-08-30

  Pumpkin Spice does not contain pumpkin

  A slide deck debunking one of the most pernicious myths of our time: that pumpkin spice is in some way gross because it allegedly contains pumpkin; neither is true.

• 
  2020-11-14

  jtr’s Novel Writing vacation

  A slide deck about writing holidays, and what I think I've learned about writing.

• 
  2020-02-09

  Throwing the Lantern

  My 2019 novel-writing trip to Dubrovnik, with thoughts and insights on writing technology and routine, street cats, and swimming.

• 
  2020-01-12

  How to Understand Greatest Gen Khan II: Star Trek III

  A slide deck to help bring my Star-Trek-ignorant friends up to speed on the Greatest Generation live podcast about Wrath of Khan.

• 
  2016-12-03

  To tread a decaying Paris under his sandalled feet

  My 2016 novel-writing trip to Buenos Aires, with thoughts on writing, drinking Scotch on planes, Robert E. Howard, Rioplatense Spanish, and the fall of the US.

• 
  2015-05-23

  Two Months into my London Mission

  Thoughts on London by an American living abroad there on a temporary work assigment in 2015.