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Three Books About... Junkies
June 6th, 2016
The war on drugs, a battle which had fitfully sputtered in a series of minor conflicts since around 1914, finally roared into life in 1968, when Lyndon Johnson, alarmed by the Summer of Love and anxious to distract an increasingly anxious population from the war in Vietnam, decided to bolster his appeal with Middle America by cracking down on illegal drug use. To justify this use of resources and manpower, he needed a shroud to shake at potential voters — a dreadful warning about what would happen if he didn’t act.
Read Column →How Important Is Word Count? 7 Writers Discuss Their Output
June 3rd, 2016
Anyone who’s read my previous columns exploring different facets of the writing life knows how interested I am in writing routines, rituals and habits. This month I’m investigating how much writers write and just how important a daily (or weekly) word count is to each author.
Read Column →10 Sexy-Ass Physical Books
June 3rd, 2016
There's really no other way to describe this list other than "book porn." Okay, I'll try a little harder than that: in an age where the availability and convenience of eBooks makes digital books an ideal option both for publishers and consumers, we have to be reminded every now and then just how intricate, sumptuous, and downright sexy physical books can be. Thus, here are ten books both past and present that more than meet this criteria. Enjoy.
Read Column →Book vs Album: 'Blood Meridian' vs 'The Last Pale Light in the West'
June 2nd, 2016
With the recent news that a Blood Meridian movie is NOT in the works, and the recent news that I'm sad about that, I decided to take a look at a different kind of adaptation. In 1985, Cormac McCarthy published Blood Meridian.
Read Column →Dissembling The Loner: 5 Books About Outsiders and Introverts
June 2nd, 2016
Harper Lee's Boo Radley may take the cake as the most famous loner in literature, but books present the perfect entry into the minds of introverted people. Sometimes, they're the only way a particularly reclusive writer connects with the outside world. What motivates such behavior? Why do loners choose to be alone? They manage to draw our interest through the things that they withhold.
Read Column →What Works & What Doesn't: 'Showgirls'
June 1st, 2016
Welcome once again to What Works & What Doesn't. Last month, we took a look at the dynamics and general criteria of a solid Act I via Terrence Malick's debut feature Badlands. We'll be doing more or less the same for Act II, and this time around, we're going to look at a movie that almost gets it right, but doesn't quite hit the mark.
Read Column →UPDATED WITH WINNER - LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown: Prince's Poetics Edition
May 31st, 2016
Flash fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity Welcome to LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown, a monthly bout of writing prowess. How It Works We give you inspiration in the form of a picture, poem, video, or prompt. You write a flash fiction piece using the inspiration we gave you. Put your entry in the comments section. One winner will be picked and awarded a prize.
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Hot Summer Reading: 7 Climate Fiction Titles for a Warming World
May 27th, 2016
Summer reading lists tend to figure heavily on formulaic thrillers and "breezy beach reads." But there's no need to turn off your brain when you bake beneath the sun in the months to come—slathered, presumably, in high-SPF sunscreen, which itself may or may not give you cancer. In fact, as the mercury hits its latest all-time high, hurricane season rocks the Atlantic seaboard, and wildfire darkens the skies out West, you may find that during the dog days of Late Capitalism, only a fine work of climate fiction will do.
Read Column →6 Game Development Lessons For Writers
May 26th, 2016
When I read Spelunky by Derek Yu, the book about Yu's development of the game by the same name, I expected to be entertained, elated, and maybe a little lost at times. After all, I'm not a video game programmer. I tried to program Tetris into a calculator in junior high, and those wasted hours and pages of printed code represent the extent of my programming knowledge. What I didn't expect was that the book would have so much good advice for writers.
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