Columns

Put A Vampire In It!

October 11th, 2018

By now we’ve injected vampires into just about everything. Jane Eyre got the re-VAMP experience in Jane Slayre. We crammed vampirism into Emma (Emma and the Vampires). We’ve even mashed up Abraham Lincoln and vampires in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I guess being our greatest President wasn’t enough for some folks. “That's great and all, but what if he, like, also killed vampires!?”

Read Column →

15 of Literature’s Most Villainous Names

October 9th, 2018

Whether they hail from Disney or Dickens, all great villains have something in common: a malevolent, terrifying name. One that strikes fear into your heart from the first time you hear it, making you think, “How in the world did someone come up with that name?” Some of these may look familiar, but they’ll still send a serious shiver down your spine. Read on to relish 15 of the best villainous names in literature, sure to inspire dread (or at the very least a good Halloween costume).

Read Column →

Comics vs. Television: Iron Fist

October 4th, 2018

Danny Rand, the Immortal Iron Fist, has a problem. He has no idea who he is, or what kind of hero he should become. His eponymous series, Iron Fist, suffers a similar setback—it cannot decide what kind of show it wants to be, even after two seasons. It uses Marvel’s tried and true formula and tries to borrow all the best bits of its predecessors, but the end result is considerably less than the sum of its parts. Why is Iron Fist the one superhero Marvel can’t spin into gold?

Read Column →

Nitpicking 17 Great Horror Comedies

October 3rd, 2018

Horror and comedy go together like Leatherface and chainsaws. Like Candyman and mirrors. Like candy corn and the garbage can. But even the best horror comedies have lousy moments, tiny little things that change the tone or take a person out of the story. It’s these things that keep me up at night. Not the Kruegers or the Vorheeses. It’s these tiny, nitpicky things.

Read Column →

Library Love: The Future is Open

October 2nd, 2018

Everyone who has attended a college or university has had a moment where they discovered the cornucopia of digital resources available from their library. Or they could have had it if they were library-inclined. Not everyone is in love with libraries as much as yours truly, but there does come a time when Google isn't going to cut it for that final paper. It turns out there are many extremely helpful article databases one can only access when connected with an institution of higher education. The fancier your institution, the more access you typically get.

Read Column →

150 Years Later, ‘Little Women’ Is Still The Biggest Of Deals

September 28th, 2018

Header image via Wikipedia Commons Louisa May Alcott published the first volume of Little Women on September 30, 1868 – one hundred and fifty years ago on Sunday.

Read Column →

It Took Me 10 Years to Publish My Poetry Collection

September 27th, 2018

I create music because I have to. I might get paid for it one day, but that isn't why I’ll spend hours by myself in a basement toiling away with a bass/guitar and a microphone. There is something calming and euphoric about this ritual, something centering. 

Read Column →

Books vs. Miniseries: 'The Stand'

September 24th, 2018

The Stand is one of Stephen King's most enduring and popular works. This is due, in part, to the fact the book formally introduces one of the author's most formidable baddies, Randall Flagg, as well as the fact it's an effectively modern interpretation of the epic good versus evil narrative (King took inspiration for The Stand from The Lord Of The Rings series).

Read Column →

Stephen King's 10 Best - Yes, Best! - Endings

September 21st, 2018

Original Author photo by Shane Leonard via stephenking.com Today is Stephen King’s birthday, and for his birthday, I’d like to grant him a gift that I believe most readers and critics deny him: the acknowledgement that the man can write a really great ending. The horror author is often criticized for his endings, and while it’s true that some of his best books go off the rails in the last fifty or so pages, he’s also put together some of the most imaginative and poetic endings in fiction.

Read Column →

Inspiration from the Brooklyn Book Fest

September 21st, 2018

Last week I outran a hurricane to make it to the Brooklyn Book Festival. Florence was bearing down on the Carolinas, and I wanted to stay to help my husband, because mandatory evacuation, but he made me leave on a train, two days early, so I wouldn't miss my chance to get up to New York for the free gathering of literary luminaries. (Luckily, Florence brought nothing more to our neck of the woods than a few downed twigs. We will rebuild!)

Read Column →