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Five Ray Bradbury Stories That Tell Us Everything We Need to Know About Writing.
November 27th, 2015
Fiction traffics in a tension between the impossible and the possible, and no writer walked this line with more guts and style than Ray Bradbury. Conflict—between or within characters—is at the heart of fiction, but in these five stories (he wrote more than six hundred of them) Bradbury shows us how only an escalating tension between style and substance—between what a story is trying to say and how it is trying to say it—can give fictional struggles the power to truly move us.
Read Column →5 Holiday Writing Hacks
November 25th, 2015
The holiday season is upon us. So much to do! So many people to see! So much food to eat and booze to consume! So many group activities in which we must take part! All that warm, fuzzy togetherness is part of the joy of the season. But we all know that when you don't get time to write, you're a total pain in the ass. So do yourself and your family a favor this holiday season and avail yourself of these tricky writing hacks.
Read Column →6 Festive Thanksgiving Romances
November 25th, 2015
November is well known to be a month for family gatherings and counting your blessings, but did you know it's also the perfect month for falling in love? There’s just something about the cooler temperatures and feelings of camaraderie and well-being that somehow light the fire for romance. Authors from Rachel Harris to Janet Evanovich are celebrating the Fall season and all of the charm that goes with it, with Thanksgiving-themed romances that are sure to warm your heart and set the mood for the coming holiday season.
Read Column →There Is No Spoon: 7 Books For a Nihilist Thanksgiving
November 25th, 2015
The holidays are a marvelous time to contemplate the futility of existence. Albert Camus, Brett Easton Ellis, and old Will Shakespeare might be able to offer some comfort at the stuffing bowl if you're not quite feeling the joy of the upcoming season. If the stuffing bowl is even really there, that is.
Read Column →What Comedy Central’s ‘Review’ Can Teach Us About Experimental Narratives
November 24th, 2015
At first glance, Comedy Central’s Review is nothing more than another episodic sketch show. Andy Daly plays Forrest MacNeil, host of his own show, also called Review. In Review, MacNeil reviews life experiences at the request of his viewers. For instance, a reviewer might request to know what it’s like to be racist, or what it’s like to steal something, or maybe even what it’s like to eat fifteen pancakes. Whatever the request is, MacNeil is game.
Read Column →David Foster Wallace reviews 'List of the Lost' by Morrissey
November 24th, 2015
I heard about the book a couple of days ago. Shelley mentioned it to Auden over the dinner table in one of those whispers you use when you want people to hear you. Have you finished with it yet Wysten? he hissed, loud enough to make the teacups tinkle. Auden gave him a we can’t talk about that here look and motioned him away to a corner so they could mutter and giggle together like the High School girls they are. Fuck them I thought, but my interest was aroused.
Read Column →'American Horror Story: Hotel' and Why Hotel Horror Works
November 23rd, 2015
It’s no secret that Ryan Murphy’s popular horror anthology TV series, American Horror Story, is a mixed bag, from the beautifully grotesque second season, Asylum, to the consistently disappointing third, Coven. Still, as a huge fan of hotel horror and for the most-part the American Horror Story series, I had high hopes going into this season. Hopes that haven’t quite been met, but perhaps like last year’s outing, Freak Show, it will get better as the ‘story’ progresses.
Read Column →Turkey Coma: Five Times Screenwriters Put Characters Conveniently to Sleep
November 20th, 2015
The coma as catalyst is old hat, popping up in such classics as Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”, and consequently has made its way, unbeknownst, into many a writer's bag of tricks. More often than not this results in the convenient coma, when a character is put to sleep in order to drive the plot forward, usually with others fighting to wake them up. This is a tried and true plot device of the screenwriter, so much so that it has its own page on the All the Tropes Wiki.
Read Column →13 Ways to Live And Write Like Kurt Vonnegut
November 20th, 2015
Kurt Vonnegut would have been 93 this month. If we were lucky enough to live in a world where people like Kurt Vonnegut lived to be 93. The dude is one of those writers who's well-liked and popular, but still underrated somehow. How it is that The Sirens Of Titan isn't an all-time classic I do now know or understand, and frankly it's part of what makes me feel like our society is nothing but wreckage.
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