Columns

5 Explosive Gothic Bonfires

September 24th, 2015

I’ve been noticing a trend in my favorite gothic tales— there are a lot of house fires. Is there an underlying reason for this theme, or do old mansions just make really good tinder for marshmallow roasting?

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How To Scare Your Reader: 11 Tips From 11 Horror Writers

September 23rd, 2015

How do you scare your reader? Perhaps the ultimate question for the horror writer, and a question that has intrigued me for a long time. The dictionary definition of ‘scare’ is [to] ‘cause great fear or nervousness’. Fear is an evolutionary survival tactic that originates from our fight or flight response. Fear induces a biochemical physical reaction that can include sweating, heart palpitations, and a surge of adrenaline.

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Patton Oswalt's Night Café and the Script that Changed Joss Whedon Forever

September 23rd, 2015

In Patton Oswalt's 2015 memoir Silver Screen Fiend, the stand-up comedian and actor describes a movie addiction that lasted from May 1995 to May 1999. He uses this framing device to explore other tangents of his life, and then weaves them together in a deconstruction of the purpose of art and its role. This is brought to life with a treatise on Vincent van Gogh and The Night Café, something he gives great symbolic meaning to and then applies to his own life.

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Scandinavian Crime Fiction Primer: Sweden

September 22nd, 2015

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. There, we got it out of the way. Scandinavian crime fiction: What else is there? Well, there's plenty, but which ones should you read? Beside Stieg Larsson, you're probably looking at Henning Mankell, Håkan Nesser, Camilla Lackberg and Liza Marklund. I'm not a fan of the last two, so I won't talk about them here, but you can always check them out on Amazon. But let's talk about what I do like.

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How Character Likability Kills Movies (and How It Can Save Books)

September 21st, 2015

Get a load of this jerk. Okay, it's tough to be mad at a head of hair like that. Especially when we all know that hairline's bleak future. Enjoy the breeze, Cage-y locks. It will be...your last.

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Book vs. Film: Cabal vs. Nightbreed

September 18th, 2015

Last year, the good folks at Scream! Factory, the horror imprint of specialty Blu-Ray manufacturers Shout! Factory, released something truly special: the director's cut of Clive Barker's cult classic Nightbreed. Fans of the film, as well as Barker himself, had been eager to see the version of the film its creator had originally intended to release back in 1990.

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What Every Successful Novel Opening Must Do: Myth vs. Reality

September 17th, 2015

The day is short, the slush is deep, and if your manuscript doesn't have what it takes to hook a reader from the very first page, agents and editors will waste no time in kicking it to the curb.  It's a bit of a brutal business, but necessary; to succeed in securing a readership, a novel's opening must prove more seductive than the latest email pinging your reader's phone, the latest update from some far-flung friend, or the siren song of Netflix.

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Bookshots: 'The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray' by Robert Schnakenberg

September 17th, 2015

Bookshots: Pumping new life into the corpse of the book review Title: The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray Who wrote it? Bill Murray is one of the most interesting people to ever work in film. Eccentric doesn't even begin to cover it. Not Bill Murray. The book is written by Robert Schnakenberg.

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6 Books That Would Make Great Reality TV Shows

September 15th, 2015

It seems like people are reading less and less these days. Instead of opening the nearest book, we turn on our televisions to watch the families, contestants, and cats starring in the latest reality series. I know I can’t help but be entertained by these shows. The marital feuds, drunken brawls, and shocking cliffhangers before commercials hook me like crazy.

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Charles Bukowski reviews 'Purity' by Jonathan Franzen

September 15th, 2015

I get so close this time. I make it all the way past the three headed mutt and over the river. I even have my finger on the elevator button, waiting for the shimmering doors to open and take me back to the Mortal World. I'm practically on a stool with a bottle of suds in my hand, swapping tall tales with the bartender, when the hand comes down on my shoulder. ‘Step away from the Pearly Gate, Chuck.’ That motherfucker Gabriel, all wings and pageboy haircut and saintly expression.

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