Columns

Get Your Sh*t Together: Six Memoirs for Personal Growth

February 26th, 2018

As human beings, we've all got room to grow, but there are times when personal growth is more of an imperative than others.  Times of grief, change, and significant upheaval. Times when life and death and the sheer fragility of the human coil can seem overwhelming. Times when the world at large appears dangerous and strange, and the ghosts of the past come knocking. Times, you could say, like these.

Read Column →

How to Hide Exposition Through Action

February 23rd, 2018

I was reading a draft of a friend's novel, and in one of the chapters, it was critical for a character in the chapter to explain something. Ah, the dreaded telling. The thing every teacher you've had from middle school on has told you to avoid. But the fact is, telling is a necessary device for progressing a story. If telling was not allowed, we'd all be writing plays and screenplays. The trick is using it infrequently and hiding it. 

Read Column →

Horror: Defining the Genre, Sub-genres, Styles, and More

February 22nd, 2018

Two of my favorite topics in all the world are genre and horror. I'm simply fascinated by the ways that we, as creators and consumers, decide to delineate and define genre. What "counts" as what? Who decides? When is it black and white vs. shades of gray? Horror, in particular, is a fascinating conversation to have, not just because I like it so much, but because of all the genres, horror probably has the most stigma and shame swirling in its depths (though erotica is in the running).

Read Column →

Zoraida Cordova Writes Fantasy She Can See Herself In

February 21st, 2018

Zoraida Cordova writes fantasy about witches and magical beings because her childhood was sheltered. She grew up in a quiet neighborhood and didn’t have much freedom to wander around with her friends. So the stories she writes are a form of escapism.

Read Column →

The Hack-Dad Chronicles: Friends Are Better With Drugs

February 20th, 2018

I’m on the floor of my office pouring sweat. I’m grinding my teeth, my lower back twists with cramps. I’m shivering. I want to wrap myself in a blanket, but from experience, I know the minute I drape it over my shoulders, I’ll be burning hot again. I remind myself this is only temporary, it will pass like a queasy wave of ammonia and white-hot irrational anger. All of this feels way too familiar. It feels like I’ve been subjecting myself to this thing called the end of the line. This thing called quitting.

Read Column →

Fun in the Funhole: Exploring Kathe Koja’s “The Cipher”

February 19th, 2018

In 1991, horror fans received one of the greatest gifts imaginable: the birth of Dell/Abyss. Thanks to Jeanne Cavelos, not only an award-winning editor but also a goddamn NASA scientist, we were introduced to hitherto novice authors such as Poppy Z. Brite, Lisa Tuttle, Brian Hodge, Nancy Holder, and—yes—Kathe Koja, just to name a few. The Abyss line branched from Bantam Doubleday Dell, a company that had previously dabbled in horror but hadn’t quite committed to the genre yet. Not until Cavelos joined the team and changed everything.

Read Column →

6 Tips On How To Be Prolific

February 19th, 2018

I get a lot of teasing or gentle (and not-so-gentle) ribbing about my prolific output from other authors. I started writing novels in 2009 and I just released my 20th book. Along the way I’ve written around one hundred short stories, two TV pilots, several articles—and that’s not mentioning the five novels that remain unpublished (at least one for good reason). A question I get a lot is how I do it with a full time day job, two kids, a podcast, a sideline designing book covers and that elusive commodity: sleep.

Read Column →

6 Royal Books for the Blue in Your Veins

February 16th, 2018

Thank you Netflix for reminding me that no, my obsession with all things fancy and British was not just a thing of my childhood. It's a thing forever. Season two of The Crown - so good - is now very much in my past because I binge watched it in like two (maybe three) days, and now the world is grey and boring. What to do? The librarian in me demands that I run to the stacks. Thankfully, there's no shortage of British drama to be found there.

Read Column →

The Two Lukes: Comparing and Contrasting 'Dark Empire' and 'The Last Jedi'

February 15th, 2018

Released more than 25 years ago, the comic book mini-series Star Wars: Dark Empire by writer Tom Veitch and artist Cam Kennedy is notable for many reasons. It marked the start of a 20-year-long relationship between Dark Horse Comics and Lucasfilm that would result in thousands of issues and countless storylines expanding on the galaxy far, far away.

Read Column →

Single And Loving It: A Reading List

February 14th, 2018

When you say "There are some great things about single life," people look at you like you're saying, "There are some great things about having oral surgery." They figure you're a person so deluded you'll try and find the upside of bleeding from the mouth for a few days. 

Read Column →