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Bookshots: 'The Doll Collection' edited by Ellen Datlow
March 11th, 2015
Bookshots: Pumping new life into the corpse of the book review Title: The Doll Collection Who Wrote It?: It’s impossible to put together an anthology where every single story resonates with a reader, but if anybody can do it, it’s probably Ellen Datlow. Edited by Ellen Datlow, with fiction by Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen Graham Jones, Tim Lebbon, Gemma Files, John Langan, and many others.
Read Column →Controversy Be Damned: My High Hopes for Harper Lee's New Novel
March 11th, 2015
I couldn't have been older than twelve the first time I picked up Harper Lee's iconic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't remember why I started reading it when I was still so young, years before it would have been assigned English Lit reading. Perhaps my mother, a lifelong Gregory Peck fan, had been watching the movie version, and perhaps I sat and watched it, drawn into the story despite the grainy black and white.
Read Column →Writing 'The Other'
March 10th, 2015
About a month or so back, I became fascinated with Boston. Not the city itself, so much, but a certain subset of people, perhaps equal parts stereotype and true-blue. The "Boston" character that I'm speaking of is fairly specific: he's working class, descended from a long line of Irish immigrants, and always seems to have at least one toe dipped into something illegal, or at least related to crime (which is at odds with his very pronounced yet flexible moral code).
Read Column →Five of the Juiciest Literary Lawsuits
March 9th, 2015
It’s a sad reflection on humanity when your assessment of literary lawsuits comes down to greed, or mental health issues. And as mentioned by Scholastic in the J. K. Rowling lawsuit, success seems to breed not only imitation, but also litigation. But, here we find ourselves… There are so many juicy literary lawsuits that I had difficulty whittling it down to the most outrageous. If you have any others you think warrant a mention, feel free to comment!
Read Column →Five Asinine Things Writers Hate to Hear
March 6th, 2015
The writer's life is a life of rage, pain, humiliation, despair, and (did I mention it?) rage. Cocktail parties become minefields as we dodge questions about what we do for what is euphemistically called "a living." Civilians just don't get it. With purposeful malice, they insist on asking us to discuss what we're working on. Don't they understand that they're knifing us in the heart?
Read Column →Brainstorm Your Next Novel with Fiasco - Part 1
March 6th, 2015
Having some trouble with your novel WIP? Not sure how to connect the dots or how to fill out that character roster? I'm here to help.
Read Column →Mathematicians Among Us: 10 Books With a Numerical Heart
March 6th, 2015
In honor of the most accurate Pi Day to occur during this century (3.1415), a list of mathematical books seemed only appropriate. For a subject that many writers are stereotypically shy of (at least, according to the New Yorker), it didn’t take very long to compile a list of titles that marry mathematical concepts with literature quite nicely. There’s a certain line of thinking which proposes the human brain is split neatly into two halves— the creative and the logical.
Read Column →The Spork of Publishing: What to Consider After Finishing Your First Novel
March 5th, 2015
So you’ve written a novel. At least 50,000 words of fiction. You’ve created characters with the strength of your imagination, and you put them through hell. Maybe not everybody survived. The important thing is that you survived. You wrote a book. Regardless of whether it’s a good book or a bad book, you still wrote one and that is no easy feat.
Read Column →What The Hell Is 'Wild Animus'?
March 5th, 2015
There are a few baffling items every thrift store carries. Every thrift store has a collection of crutches. Usually they're corralled in a big barrel, and usually the under-arm pads are in a state that makes you wonder just how many people sweat acid from their armpits. Every thrift store has golf shoes ranging in size from men's 14 to men's 177. These shoes usually contain remnants of the last round of golf played, a little dried grass and mud from whatever course frustrated the player to the point of tossing the sport entirely.
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