Columns

Tommy Wiseau, Charles Hinton, and the Non-Existance of Ironic Joy

June 22nd, 2017

Most of you are probably familiar with Tommy Wiseau, auteur behind The Room. The Room is a fascinating piece of work. It’s become the defining version of the “so bad it’s good” type of thing. Loads of people come out to midnight showings, throw spoons at the screen, and engage in the sort of shenanigans normally reserved for screenings of Rocky Horror.

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The Lost Art of the Graphic Novel Introduction

June 21st, 2017

There was a time when comic book trade paperbacks we’re not that common. The Dark Knight Returns, for instance, and Watchmen were notable for being collected and released in book stores. That was in 1986, and in the years that followed it was so rare of an occurrence that a trade paperback release was treated as a special event. From Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman to Kevin Smith’s monumental run on Daredevil that put the character back on the map, trade paperbacks were treated with prestige.

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How to Start an Author Website

June 21st, 2017

Spurred on by the One Story Per Week Writing Challenge, I recently decided to set up a personal website. A platform to showcase my writing, podcasting, and editing. Here are some of the lessons I learned and steps you can take to set up your own. Pages Before buying a domain name, choosing a content management system and setting up an email list, you should decide on the pages you’d like your website to include and then write copy for each.

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Wide Open: 10 Classic (and perhaps not so classic) Road Trip Books

June 20th, 2017

Header: Pixabay It could be argued that every great story is built around a journey. More often than not, they are of a more spiritual nature, as characters grow and change, seeking out their fortunes and coming to terms with their circumstances. Struggling to find themselves and their place in the world.

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Storyville: Avoiding Purple Prose in Your Fiction

June 20th, 2017

So, I’m either the perfect person to write this column, or exactly the wrong person to do it, because quite often in the past my own writing has been called “purple.” I disagree with that assessment, at least in regards to my current work, the last couple of years. But there you have it. Let’s dig in deeper, shall we, and see what this is all about? WHAT IS PURPLE PROSE? I’ll pull this directly from Wikipedia, because I think it’s a pretty good definition:

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Why Would An Adult Read Books For Teenagers?

June 19th, 2017

Image via B&N I read for countless reasons. I read for learning, for empathy, for experience. I read to expand my horizons, to travel the universe, to meet new friends and fall in love and have my heart broken exquisitely. I read to escape the crushing weight of reality or to experience it more vividly and through another’s eyes. I read for fun, for work, and sometimes just to be able to check off that I've read a book.

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The Top 10 Transgressive Novels of All Time

June 16th, 2017

What is transgressive fiction? Well, if you find yourself saying "damn, that's fucked up" more than three times but keep on reading, there's a pretty good chance the book in front of you is a work of transgressive literature. But that's a pretty wide net. So for the purpose of this list, we will not be including hardcore horror or splatter punk (otherwise Ed Lee and Wrath James White would make an appearance) or Bizarro (like Carlton Mellick's Haunted Vagina or Matthew Stoke's Cow).

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Build a Writing Retreat from the Ground Up

June 16th, 2017

We hear about writing retreats all the time. Many of us have even been on some. But have you ever wanted to put together your own? It’s more work than tagging along on someone else’s, yes, but when you set up the parameters you leverage yourself for the best possible retreat to fit your needs. Today I’ll walk through some considerations, steps, and tips for building your very own writing retreat from the ground floor.

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5 Bad-Ass Women Writing the West

June 15th, 2017

Once upon a time, the literature of the West was the Western—the story of a lone dude, likely nursing some sort of psychic wound, who blows into town on his trusty steed, saves the populace from a local menace, and then rides off into the sunset. In this story, this (white) guy is always the hero—women and people of color, if present at all, play a supporting role.

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Library Love: Unemployment Edition

June 15th, 2017

Unemployment. Underemployment. Unenjoyable employment. We've all been there or are there or will be there. We don't live in the age of the all-caring parent company that employs one for life. (Unless you work in government. But wait! Even non-partisan government jobs can be terminated over the television these days. Nothing is safe.) Did that age really ever exist? Maybe for some of our parents, but overwhelmingly, we all have to hustle at certain points in our lives.

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