Columns

What Do We Call “The Middle East”?

November 14th, 2017

I’d written a book about the Arabian Peninsula and Central Asia and Egypt and the Levant and the Horn of Africa and pockets of modern Mesopotamia — and it needed a subtitle. Things like “Greater Middle East,” “Muslim Worlds,” “Arab worlds,” were all options. Vagueness juggled inaccuracy, and mostly not very well. I wrote Reza Aslan, mildly desperate. “Would love to hear your thoughts on names for this part of the world.”

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World Fantasy Con 2017: A Mixed Montage

November 13th, 2017

Last year was my first World Fantasy Convention, in Columbus, OH. This year it was in San Antonio, and it was a very different con, so instead of posting a delayed live blog again, I’m going to go with a montage. In no particular order, then, here’s some of the stand-out moments, at least to me, of World Fantasy 2017.

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7 Powerful & Painful Books That Will Make You A Better Person

November 10th, 2017

Not all reading is easy. Some of it is f-ing hard! If you're like me, on the loooooong list of books you plan to read someday are a handful of difficult titles. Anything about injustice fits into this category. Also like me, you might be waiting for your fellow readers / scholars to vet the titles for you, so you don't have to read too many. Because frankly, I'd rather get back to the safe havens of Alexander McCall Smith or Charlaine Harris. But hiding my head in the sands of safe fiction doesn't work for me forever. Eventually I have to face the world.

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Five Tools for the Journeyman Writer

November 9th, 2017

A couple of months ago, I had an idea for a new book with no vampires in it. This is actually pretty unusual for me. For my entire writing career, I’ve stuck almost exclusively to the urban fantasy genre, which is my happy place. I love what I do, but after twelve books of writing…well, not the same thing, but related things, I figured it might be time to go outside my comfort zone, maybe try something a little more literary. To do that, I decided I would need to spend a little time improving my writing.

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Why Art is So Important During Turbulent Times

November 9th, 2017

We live in turbulent times. Each day it seems we wake up to more bad news or troublesome tweets from our President. These are angry times as well — times when families are riven by political tension, when it feels like the regular global order is fractured beyond repair.  I recently got into a yelling fight with my mother because I thought she was being too “privileged” by turning off the TV and not taking in the news. And she told me that she was sinking into a legitimate depression because of what she heard or read there.

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The 11 Bram Stoker Novels That Aren't 'Dracula'

November 8th, 2017

Bram Stoker was born November 8th, 1847. Then some other stuff happened, then we had vampires. That’s the way it looks to most of us, anyway. This being Ol’ Bram-ble’s (we’re close, I have cute nicknames for him) 170th birthday, I thought it’d be good to write something about the man. But the last thing the world needs is another column about Dracula. What could I say about it that hasn’t already been said a dozen times over by a few dozen English professors with a couple dozen bored students in front of them?

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Storyville: Horror Story vs. Horror Novel

November 7th, 2017

Today I’m going to be talking about how to establish the length of your story, and while I’ll be focusing on horror, you can probably apply all of my comments to any genre. Sometimes the story decides what it wants to be, but for now, let’s pretend like we’re in control.

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Parallels Between Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" and 'Blade Runner'

November 6th, 2017

Blade Runner 2049 may be a colossal failure at the box office, but its critical reception and the buzz generated online indicate people will be talking about it for years to come. One point of discussion has been its literary connections. Of course there’s the fact that it’s a sequel to a movie based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, but there are allusions to other books in Blade Runner 2049.

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Gory, Bizarre, Cheesy Horror Movies and Their Book Matches Pt. 2

November 1st, 2017

As was made clear in part one of this column, I love horror movies, and I love horror books. So much that I went a little bit overboard on this column and had to divide it into two parts. Which is all the more exciting! Because now it can have a subtitle like "The Bloodening" or "Revengitality."

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The 15 Best Costumes for Writers

October 31st, 2017

Halloween is my favorite misunderstood/commercialized "holiday," and dressing up is a big part of it. I know saying people take off their masks and show the world their true selves on Halloween night is a cliché, but it's a good, accurate cliché. In any case, writers are a special breed, so I decided to create a list of cheap costumes for those who plan to go to a party or go ask strangers for free candy. Let's get started.

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