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5 Unconventional Gifts for Writers (to Sharpen Craft and Productivity)
February 29th, 2016
Looking to buy a gift for the writer in your life? I’m going for something a little different here—you won’t find a book or many of the conventional gifts that ordinarily adorn these lists. I’m focussing on tools that have helped sharpen my craft and productivity, often indirectly. Remember you don’t need an excuse or a special day to inundate writers with presents—you can buy a gift at any time! And yes you can even buy a gift for yourself. Let’s get started.
Read Column →10 Tips on How To Find or Form the Critique Group of Your Dreams
February 29th, 2016
Writers everywhere know that there’s comfort in the solitude that is the typical writing process, but it is often when we come out from behind the screen and connect with each other that we are able to make our stories great. There comes a point in every writer’s process where it becomes imperative that they receive some sort of outside feedback on a draft. For unagented writers, there is no better way to get that kind of in-depth feedback than through a critique group.
Read Column →Doctor Strange Will See You Now: An Introduction
February 29th, 2016
Image via Entertainment Weekly Now that Ant-Man has definitively proven that Disney can turn even the most obscure Marvel characters into box-office gold, the cinematic universe is finally expanding to include one of the more interesting if less famous Avengers: Doctor Strange. Although integral to the team in the comics, the good doctor has made few appearances on screen other than a lackluster animated direct-to-DVD adventure and a best-forgotten TV movie in the ‘70s.
Read Column →Here's How Much Buzzfeed Book Quizzes Know About You
February 26th, 2016
Hi, I'm Pete. I'm a Mario Bros.
Read Column →'City of Rose' Book Tour Diary: Los Angeles
February 24th, 2016
Please forgive the selfie indulgence in the banner. I couldn't help myself. But when I left New York, it was -10 degrees with the wind chill. And the first three stops on my tour—Portland, Seattle, San Francisco—were pretty comfortable in comparison, but Los Angeles was like magic. Sunny and 73 degrees. I was staying in my friend's apartment in Silver Lake, off Sunset, and I spent a day wandering around in a t-shirt, eating fish tacos, and drinking weather-appropriate iced coffees. It was pretty great.
Read Column →Why 'Moby-Dick' Matters
February 23rd, 2016
illustration by Robert Kent, from the 1930 Random House edition of 'Moby Dick,' courtesy Plattsburgh State Art Museum Call Me Dumbfounded. I pitched this idea for a column to LitReactor’s dedicated editors knowing that, if they accepted it, I’d be reading Moby-Dick for the fourth time. Rattling off reasons why Moby-Dick still mattered? A snap!
Read Column →'City of Rose' Book Tour Diary: San Francisco
February 23rd, 2016
The San Francisco leg of my tour included a pretty big milestone: I finished the final draft of my third novel, South Village, and got it off to my publisher. Earlier than I intended, too. South Village is due March 1, and my plan was to finish and file by the flight home. But between the amount of time I was spending on planes and in airports, and the huge chunk of free time I had in Seattle, I blazed through it.
Read Column →What Works & What Doesn't: 'Pulp Fiction'
February 22nd, 2016
Welcome once again to What Works & What Doesn't, a monthly column dedicated to the craft of screenwriting. For this installment, we're going to look at the architecture of a scene in its entirety, in particular how action (or scene descriptions) and dialogue are used to generate beats, which in turn move a scene along toward a climax.
Read Column →'City of Rose' Book Tour Diary: Seattle
February 22nd, 2016
My second day in Seattle, I went to a laundromat because I am bad at packing and was out of clean socks and would soon be out of other forms of clothing. After that I got a really awesome burrito at Rancho Bravo and found a few copies of my books at Elliott Bay Book Company—which was pretty awesome—and signed their stock. Then I got some ice cream at Molly Moon’s, because I am a sucker for fancypants ice cream.
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