Columns

Storyville: 10 Highly Anticipated Books for 2017

January 30th, 2017

Here is my personal list of books that I’m excited to read this year. It’s a wide range of titles, from big and small presses, so hopefully you find something you like.

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15 Books by POC You Should Buy Before Buying Rachel Dolezal's Nonsense

January 30th, 2017

Publishing a book about race written by Rachel Dolezal is as stupid as publishing a book by Milo Yiannopoulos.

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Southern Gothic: A Primer

January 27th, 2017

Southern Gothic: A literary genre that trades the staple cold, empty castles for derelict plantations and the dusty small towns of the American South; virginal brides and lords for fading aristocracy and broken people. It's a kind of deconstruction of the old antebellum South, a peek behind the curtain of proper southern gentlemen and ladies. It trades out Gothic Fiction's supernatural elements for a touch of magic realism and a fixation with the grotesque. The South's history of slavery and racism looms over the proceedings.

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A List of 2017 Workshops & Conferences for Writers

January 26th, 2017

If your 2017 writing goals include networking or honing your craft, there’s no better place to do so than a writer’s conference or workshop. Whether you are looking to shore up your technique with quality intensives, or network with industry professionals, there is an upcoming event for you. Some are small, with one-on-one opportunities for meeting with industry professionals and agents, while others are better suited for meeting fellow writers and building your network on a smaller scale.

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Writing the Crime Scene: Arson

January 25th, 2017

Imagine your detective racing to stop a pyromaniac from terrorizing the city with a series of deadly infernos during a heatwave. Or a fire investigator struggling to prove an 'accidental' condominium fire was actually torched to cover-up a triple homicide. Pyromania is one of the three behavioural characteristics in the McDonald Triad for sociopaths and serial killers. Yet arson remains an underrated and underused method of murder in crime novels.

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6 Unorthodox Fundraisers For Your Self-Publishing Venture

January 24th, 2017

You need money for your self-publishing project. You need it bad. I know what you're thinking. Isn't that what Kickstarter is for? Yeah, maybe. But it's also for people who are raising money to build a $50,000 potato salad.

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Why People Shouldn't Fear Academic Essay Collections

January 24th, 2017

Whether covering great moments in Greek architecture or the films of Tim Burton, academic essay collections tend to be released in slim paperbacks and consumed by a niche audience. That audience probably includes the authors’ peers and the college students that are either assigned readings or seek them out as sources for their writing. But it could be so much more.

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Top Ten Novels about Cold Weather

January 20th, 2017

Okay, so maybe the title of his article is a tad clickbaity. These novels are not necessarily about the weather, but weather plays a major role in them. If you care about writing, you've probably read Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing. The first one? "Never open a book with weather." That being said, we all know rules are made to be broken. Weather can be a crucial part of your setting or even the main element of it. It can also affect plot and characters in many ways.

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The 2017 One Story Per Week Writing Challenge

January 19th, 2017

Image It started in September whilst I was conducting an interview with Jessica McHugh on the This Is Horror Podcast. Jessica told me of her own one story per week challenge back in 2014, an idea that was spawned by a Ray Bradbury quote:

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Elizabeth Bennet: The Original Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

January 19th, 2017

Oh, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Hollywood's go-to female character. Some would argue it's time for the phrase to go away (and in fact, the man who coined the term has argued exactly that). That it's a tired old trope of tired modern films, and we'd do well to move as far away from it as possible.

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