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The Lost Boys of YA: Are Young Men Reading Less?

January 27th, 2015

A friend of mine who recently finished six years of military service used to read on the bus between training exercises. It seems like a pretty innocuous thing to do. The ride from one base to another was four hours long, so he brought a book to entertain himself. At least, that was his original intent when he started out as a 19-year-old private. He quickly found that his peers viewed reading as a strictly feminine activity, and a laughable one at that. Tired of the constant harassment that it provoked, he eventually stopped bringing books on the bus.

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10 Books I Will Finally Read This Year

January 27th, 2015

How long is your to-read list?  Mine grows by the minute, and with so many new books being added daily, I've left some titles hanging there for years. Well, 2015 is the year I save ten of these cast-off classics. What follows is the list of books I will finally read this year. 

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Culling the Poetry Classics: Robert Frost

January 26th, 2015

Hello, happy New Year, and welcome to 2015's all-new, all-poetry edition of "Culling The Classics." In the past, CTC has focused primarily on the supposed Great Works of Old White Guy Literature (with a few notable exceptions), helping to keep you the reader from wasting time on a boring/outdated/just plain bad so-called

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Slashing Childhood: An Erotic Fanfiction Adventure

January 23rd, 2015

Let me be clear, I want to see what happens when significant characters from my childhood have sex with each other.

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13 Resolutions for the Reading Life

January 22nd, 2015

It’s January once again, and that means it’s time for looking over the past year and setting intentions for the New Year. People everywhere are making resolutions for living a better life, and today I’m looking specifically at my reading life. I'm sharing thirteen resolutions to shape my 2015 reading experience, in hopes of making this year bigger and better than the last. They include resolutions to read more diversely, stop feeling ashamed of what I love to read, and to re-visit the classics I left behind after graduating from college. 

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Comic Book vs. Television: Hellblazer vs. Constantine

January 22nd, 2015

The sometimes sorcerer and full-time hustler John Constantine is one of my favorite comic book characters. But even in this golden age of comic book adaptation, I never dared hope the character would get another turn after his abysmal screen debut embodied by Keanu Reeves. Marvel may rule at the movies, but DC Comics has a long tradition of dominating on TV, from the colorful universe of the Bruce Timm cartoons to the hugely successful primetime drama Smallville, which created the template that Arrow and The Flash continue to improve upon.

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5 Ways To Write A Page A Day In 2015

January 20th, 2015

Resolutions are so full of hope and positivity, but are they realistic? I tell myself I'm going to go to the gym three times a week, but a few weeks into the new year, I remember how comfortable my bed is and how delicious Doritos taste, and that these things are vastly better than the gym, overrun with treadmills and sweaty people.  Let's not use the word 'resolution.' 

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LitReactor Community Spotlight: January 2015

January 19th, 2015

Welcome to the new middle-of-the-month time slot for the Community Spotlight. This was done partly to make for less confusing titles, partly because it allows me a little flexibility, and partly because I already have an end month obligation to the carrot monster that lives in my refrigerator.

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Ring in the Noir Year: 8 Promising New Crime Titles For 2015

January 19th, 2015

Winter is a good time for crime fiction. The snow has lost its whiteness, all the holiday decorations are back in the attic, and by February it feels like spring will never come. What’s left to do? Crack open a book and try to stave off frostbite. For your depressed reading pleasure, here’s a New Year’s roundup of some promising noir, mystery, and true crime to ring in 2015.

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What 65,000 Words In One Month Feels Like: My Life So Far As A Full-time Freelancer

January 16th, 2015

On Monday August 25, 2014, I quit my job. It’s not something I broadcasted or touted on social media (okay, I did a bit on Twitter, but that’s kind of like yelling into a bottomless pit where thousands of other people are screaming, ‘Buy my book! Buy my book!’, so obviously no one really noticed except for a few pals), I just did it and did it without an ounce of regret.

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