Columns

James Joyce Loved Trieste, As Do I

February 2nd, 2018

Image via Trip Advisor There is a statue of James Joyce on a bridge across the Grand Canal in Trieste, Italy. A few steps down the road is a bar (coffee shop) called Café James Joyce. It has green walls, a shiny gold bar, and tables set into the wall in front of windows, so you can sip an espresso, people-watch, and ruminate about James Joyce, all at the same time.

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Celebrating Langston Hughes

February 1st, 2018

Langston Hughes photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1936. In 2008 I was living in a minuscule apartment with no heat and a borrowed mattress with a dent in the middle that made me feel like a human taco. I had left behind my country, language, family, friends, and favorite places to pursue a degree. My only friends back then were books, and I paid a lot of attention to what they said. When you have no money, no car, and no friends, books offer so much that you forget about what you lack.

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5 Reasons Why You Should Write a Screenplay

January 31st, 2018

Let's start with a story. A trip down memory lane, if you will. The year was 2003, and I had just finished watching Con Air for the eight-hundredth time. In that viewing, something struck me—something wonderful. The story wasn't over. When Cameron Poe is reunited with his family at the end, we are led to believe the story ends there, but it doesn't. Steve Buscemi's character, Garland Greene, escapes and no one seems to care. He was having fake tea with a little girl for God's sake.

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10 Things The Gym Taught Me About Writing

January 30th, 2018

The funny thing about revelations is that sometimes they appear as sudden explosions of understanding, but, after thinking about them for a while, you realize they are just your brain’s way of unexpectedly showing you a bunch of accumulated knowledge put together.

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Digitize Your Books For No Fun and No Profit

January 29th, 2018

I moved apartments three times in a little less than three years. There were some tough losses as a result of all these moves. Some losses were tragic accidents: And some losses were on purpose.

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Celebrating Dallas Mayr: The Wisdom of Jack Ketchum (1946–2018)

January 25th, 2018

I learnt this morning that Dallas Mayr, known to readers around the world as Jack Ketchum, passed away after a long battle with cancer. I stared at my computer screen, fighting back the tears, and searching for the right words. But the tears came and the words didn’t. I’m numb, as many of us are. Ketchum’s short story ‘Returns’ was written after he had his cat put down. In the story notes Ketchum writes:

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What It's Like to Be Young and Writing for Young Adults

January 24th, 2018

When the news broke last year about Tomi Adeyemi’s debut YA book deal, I found myself green with disgusting envy. Not because she got a huge book deal (she did) or a movie deal (she did) or because I’ve yet to find an agent; it was because she was my age. If Tomi had been 30, or 37, or 48, rather than 23, I would have been able to curb my jealousy. I would have applauded her for fighting for her dream and seeing it come true. I would have happily read all the think pieces about how success doesn’t have an age limit.

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Embracing the Missteps

January 23rd, 2018

Show of hands – anyone here get their first novel published? Like, the first one. The first one you ever wrote. That one that you shove underneath old tax forms or stick in a folder on your computer marked Vacation Pics so that no one, on the off chance they break in and decide to, you know, start lurking through your hard drive for old literary attempts, ever finds it. That book.

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What Do Superheroes Read?

January 22nd, 2018

You've read the comics and seen the movies, so at some point you've probably wondered about the stack of books on your favorite superheroes' nightstand. I know I have, so I called up a few and, despite their busy schedules, most of them answered their phones and talked to me about their reading habits. Here's what I learned.

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Choosing Your Words: To Swear or Not To Swear

January 22nd, 2018

The US edition of Swearing is Good For You has a beautiful cover. Silver grey with an enticing yellow pill on the front, which is incised with the words F*UCK YEAH. That asterisk is called a grawlix, and it’s the only one in the book. Every other swear word is written in full. It would have felt disingenuous to me to do otherwise, but I knew it was potentially controversial.

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