Columns

Magic When It All Comes Together: How To Assemble a Not-Boring Book

September 19th, 2022

Original header image by KRIPPS_medien  I tend to be musically minded, often swapping in songs and lyrics in place of emotional revelation, and, even in music, it's important not just what you say, but how and when you say it. In High Fidelity (both the 1995 novel by Nick Hornby and the 2000 film starring John Cusack), main character, Rob, lays down a series of rules of how to make a great mixtape. Roughly paraphrased, they are:

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Selling the Story of Your Story

September 16th, 2022

Kevin Smith racked up huge credit card debt to make his passion project, Clerks, shot inside a convenience store, where he actually worked, late at night. To promote The Lottery, Shirley Jackson told stories (probably at the urging of her publisher) about being a witch and casting a spell on Alfred A. Knopf that caused him to break his leg while skiing. Bon Iver and Thoreau, to greater and lesser degrees, sequestered themselves in cabins to complete their works.

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Why We Need Beta Readers Who Point Out Mistakes and Flaws In Our Books

September 15th, 2022

Being a novelist is hard. You have to conceptualize a story, then write the whole dang book, then revise it until it shines. And most of the time, you’re working on your own — especially before finding an agent, you’re working for yourself and guiding yourself and hoping and praying that you’re doing a good enough job on your own. Enter beta readers and critique partners.

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A Disordered Digest: Three New Books Exploring Eating Disorders

September 13th, 2022

I’m not sure if I was ever actually anorexic— luckily, I snapped out of it before a diagnosis—but there was that one summer of 1990 where I was trying to make my body disappear, parallel to the way other kids might run away from home. However, those kids would eventually get hungry and return to their family’s regimented dining room table, and I wasn’t satisfied until my bones began to protrude from my skin.

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Honoring the Legacy of J.F. Gonzalez

September 9th, 2022

Talented author J.F. Gonzalez, Jesus to those close to him, died from cancer on November 10, 2014. The loss to his friends, family, and readers was immense. The broader loss to the horror genre and literary world was the equivalent of deleting a storehouse of knowledge and all the future storytelling potential that came with it.

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Use Your Library to Save Your Library

September 8th, 2022

Once your library closes, once it loses a big vote, once a book comes off the shelf due to public pressure, it’s done. It’s over. The dream is dead. There is one way and only one way to keep your library from getting fucked up: use it. You Hate These Assholes Removing Books From Libraries? Me too, bro. And you know what’s the best way to make sure that doesn’t happen? Use your library. Check out those controversial books BEFORE someone decides they’re evil.

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5 Lessons On How To Avoid Getting Fucked By A Publisher

September 7th, 2022

What I want to do here is explain how my new collection, Everything Will Be All Right In The End: Apocalypse Songs, was accepted at one house, only for me to walk away from the contract and wind up at Cemetery Gates Media, who published the book on September 6, 2022.   

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Turning My Sons into Readers

September 2nd, 2022

I quit teaching back in early 2013 to pursue the more noble profession of writing dirty zombie stories. I had taught every academic subject at one point or another, including reading to fourth and fifth graders, as well as English and literature to middle school kids.

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The Penguin Merger: Court Is Now In Session

September 1st, 2022

If you’re anything like me, you heard about Penguin Random House buying Simon & Schuster for a million billion dollars, shrugged, and went back to deciding whether your book sales for the entire last quarter could buy you one of those stupid margaritas with a beer upside down in it.

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5 Must-Read Frankenstein Retellings

August 26th, 2022

Header image by Andy Mabbett Mary Shelley, nee Wollstonecraft Godwin, was born on August 30, 1797. When she was nineteen, she had a dream about a hideous man, stretched out and brought to life, that sparked a story that changed literature. Now, over two hundred years later, Frankenstein is so embedded in our modern psyche, that even people who haven’t read the novel know the general premise and recognize the creature that walks amongst its pages.

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