Columns

When To Utilize An Ensemble Cast and How To Do It Well

July 16th, 2018

The ensemble cast is often associated with superhero films and sitcoms, but it has a long history in literature as well. If you want to look at the classics then War and Peace is a great example, but contemporary books/series like A Song Of Ice and Fire, How It Went Down, and A Visit from the Goon Squad all employ ensemble casts.

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The 13 Unluckiest Characters In Fiction

July 13th, 2018

Happy Friday the 13th! If you’re having an unlucky day, just know that you’re not alone. Below, we’ve listed thirteen of the most miserably unfortunate SOBs the written word has to offer. Feel free to commiserate with them below.

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10 Reasons Book Reviews Still Matter

July 12th, 2018

I’m a book reviewer. I’m a professional book reviewer. I’m the book reviews editor for PANK Magazine. The list of places in which my reviews have been published is so long and full of defunct venues that I don’t even try to remember all of them. Yeah, sometimes I get paid and that’s great, but most of the time I don’t, and that’s also fine by me. I review books because I love literature and spreading the word about things I enjoy. I think book reviews matter. Sadly, many venues are killing book reviews, and I’m pissed about that.

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Library Love: Voices of Dead Authors

July 12th, 2018

Audiobooks. You either love them or—does anyone not love them? What's not to love when Neil Gaiman reads The Ocean at the End of the Lane directly to you—in your car? So great. I just love his intrepretation of the work.

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Catherynne M. Valente's 'Space Opera' and the Delights of a Plotless Novel

July 11th, 2018

“Life is beautiful and life is stupid.” That’s basically the thesis of Catherynne M. Valente’s novel Space Opera, a statement the omniscient narrator makes in the first chapter that becomes a mantra of sorts throughout the rest of the book. It’s a perfect summation of the book itself, although stupid is a little harsh.

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Ten Harsh Truths I Learned Writing a Moderately Successful Series For A Small Press

July 10th, 2018

Potter’s Field, the fifth and final Ash McKenna book—which started with New Yorked in 2015—is available today in hardcover and eBook. It is real weird to be at the end of this journey. Writing a series is tough. Not just on writers, but on publishers, and even on readers. But I had an idea to tell the origin story of a private detective and Polis took a chance on me and I will be forever grateful for that.

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Writing Emotions Effectively

July 9th, 2018

As an editor, one of the most common mistakes I see in manuscripts is the failure to express character’s emotions in a compelling and convincing way. This article offers a few tips on how to do so more effectively. Start by printing out your manuscript and highlighting any areas where characters are feeling particular emotions. Clearly identify what those emotions are in the margins. Then ask yourself the following questions:

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The Enduring Fictional Legacy Of The Illuminati, America's Favorite Conspiracy Theory

July 8th, 2018

Perhaps more so than any other era in history, present-day America lives under a pall of conspiracy theories run wild. We all know the big ones: the CIA (possibly in cahoots with LBJ) orchestrated JFK's assassination; the Bush administration secretly planned and executed the September 11th attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (a belief colloquially known as the exclamation, "9/11 was an inside job!"); and most recently, Hillary Clinton and various high-profile Democrats ran a child prostitution ring out of a D.C.

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23 Books that Prove America Ain't So Bad

July 3rd, 2018

This has been the hardest column I’ve ever had to introduce. And I wrote a column about the “child sewer orgy” in Stephen King’s It. If I may, a short story. Pete’s not in a great place. I’m calling myself “Pete” for a minute here. Let’s just go with it. Pete’s in a long-distance relationship. Really long-distance. And it sucks.

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The Fowlest of Influences

July 2nd, 2018

Every day, outside my window, high in the snags of an aging pine grove, I listen as a pileated woodpecker chisels away. Its rapid series of hammering taps match my keyboard strokes as we both labor to subsist. A bird that drills with its head into solid wood for lodging and a meal of carpenter ants seems to possess a skill set similar to the freelance writer: patience, commitment, and a dash of non compos mentis. cRaZy, as I call him, is at it from morning to night.

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