Columns

The 10 Best Modern Shakespeare Adaptations

April 23rd, 2018

Today is the day we celebrate The Bard’s birth and death. No one knows for certain what day he was actually born, but historians believe it was on April 23, and April 23 is without question the day he died.   So how to celebrate such a momentous day in the life and death of such a momentous writer? Read one of his plays, see a production or… write a list of the best modern film adaptations of his works? Okay, the first two are probably the more respectful options, but we’re going with #3.

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The 10 Best Lookalikes In Fiction

April 20th, 2018

Today is National Look Alike Day! I’m not sure why, exactly, or how one is meant to celebrate such a holiday, but here’s how I’m celebrating it: with a list of the best lookalikes, doubles and doppelgängers in fiction.  So tag your face-twin and settle in. Today, we recognize the ringers.

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Giving Yourself Permission to Break: Writing Through Depression

April 19th, 2018

In a funky piece of life irony, this article is about writing even while depressed. That's not the ironic part, the irony comes from the fact that it was due approximately three days before I sat down to write it, and the reason I didn't write it on time is because I was going through a very, very bad depressive episode, one that resulted in sobbing so hard my whole body ached, and lying in bed staring at the ceiling, unable to accomplish anything.

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In Defense of The Soft Machine’s Cut-Up Twisted Landscape

April 18th, 2018

A friend of mine, let’s call him Christopher, summed up his feelings on the Beat Generation by saying he “liked the idea of the movement” much more than the actual fiction that propagated it, finding a majority of the collective body merely literary flotsam. He didn’t go so far as the attributed Truman Capote quote, “That’s not writing, that’s typing,” and credited the bunch minimally as a few one-trick ponies. I disagreed.

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Don't Go Back: Avoid Spinning Your Wheels on Old Stories

April 17th, 2018

I was fortunate enough to enroll in and complete an MFA program, and prior to entering that program, I had to write two stories to bring to our very first workshop. They weren't good. Don't listen to my cohorts if you track any of them down. They are far too kind and will tell you nice things about at least one of these stories (the one that I'm about to use as an example), but they are wrong— the stories were bad. But that didn't matter at the time. The stories, one in particular, got a reaction. And I fell in love with that specific story. I revised and revised.

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Speculation On The Upcoming Marvel Movies

April 16th, 2018

Marvel has announced six open slots for movies, release dates and titles forthcoming. Through a combination of logic, knowledge, and getting into the mind of a marketing juggernaut (marketing, like THE Juggernaut, is unstoppable, but also thwarted fairly easily by the Fantastic Four), I’ve picked some likely candidates. Using my gut, beers that I put inside of my gut, and the works of Chip Zdarsky, I’ve selected some very unlikely candidates that I want to see anyway.

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The Three Times Your Novel is Finished

April 13th, 2018

"How long did it take you to write your book?" "How long does it take to write a novel?" "When did you finish your novel?" These questions are all close cousins, and I've done enough group setting Q&A sessions to know that they're inevitable—someone always asks.

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My Failed Pokemon Go Book Proposal

April 12th, 2018

Illustrations by Joel Amat Güell Two summers ago my ex-agent and I came up with an idea to cash in on the Pokémon Go craze. Time was important, so for a week I played the game, drank a lot of coffee and sugar-free Redbull, got my artist collaborator friend Joel to do some drawings, and churned out a book proposal. Unfortunately, by the time editors saw the proposal, the Pokemon Go craze was starting to crash.

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Why Crime Authors Need to Stop Pretending They're Badasses

April 11th, 2018

Sometimes I sit down to write an essay and, halfway through, stop and wonder if ruffling all those feathers is worth it. Then I remember that ruffling feathers is my job, and I finish the thing. At least I haven't received any death threats in a while.

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Why We Still Love the Great Gatsby 93 Years Later

April 10th, 2018

On April 10, 1925, Charles Scribner's Sons published a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald that has been inspiring filmmakers, English lit students, writers, readers, and party planners ever since: The Great Gatsby. At the time, the book was met with poor sales and mixed reviews. But today it is referred to as the magnum opus of one of the 20th century’s greatest American writers. So, what is it about this tale of a 1922 Long Island summer that has captivated readers for the past 93 years? Let’s take a look.

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