Columns

Book Vs. Film Vs. Unmade Film: "Pet Sematary"

September 29th, 2014

WARNING: Spoilers discussed freely.

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6 Novels That Will Destroy Your Good Mood

September 26th, 2014

photo © sylvain.collet via Flickr There are times when life is so full of joy.

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Testing Lab: Gifts For Writers

September 26th, 2014

When you Google phrases like "Good gifts for writers" or "unusual gifts for writers" or "what the $^#& do I get this stupid @$$%^@#?" you'll find plenty of advice blogs and heaps of bizarre gadgets, and you'll find several that pop up over and over. But do these gifts actually work? Are they, as MC Hammer put it, 2 Legit 2 Quit, or are they the exact opposite, 2 Crappy 2 Make You Happy? When you buy something for the writer in your life, are you wasting your money in a fun, conversation piece way, or is it in a junk drawer kind of way?

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Why The F*ck Aren’t You Reading Matt Kindt?

September 25th, 2014

image courtesy firstsecondbooks.com Why The F*ck Aren't You Reading? is a feature where the columnist spotlights a writer who has a dedicated following and is well known within the writing community, but hasn't achieved the elephant-in-the-room style success of a Stephen King or Gillian Flynn—But they deserve to, dammit! Hopefully the column will help gain the author featured a few more well-deserved readers.

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So You Want to Write a Book, Part 1: Ready, Set, GO!

September 25th, 2014

photo by Jacson Querubin via Flickr Last month, in the

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5 Things Literary Writers Can Learn from Sci-Fi Writers

September 24th, 2014

Say you're a literary writer. You've worked with famous types, attended plenty of conferences, maybe you even have an MFA. Chances are, there are a few things you don't know that writers of sci-fi (and speculative fiction in general) know that you don't.

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Screenwriting: The Emotional Spine

September 22nd, 2014

Film is an emotional medium. Reading a book puts you inside the protagonist’s head, but watching a movie plants you firmly in her shoes. The immersive audio-visual experience of a darkened theater, especially the score swelling through surround sound, is conducive to feeling, not thinking. We read a film not so much by listening to dialogue, but by watching emotions flicker across characters’ faces. We react physically to scares by jumping in our seats, and a dynamic chase sequence gets our pulse racing along with the protagonist’s.

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The Joy of Horror Novelizations

September 22nd, 2014

There is an alternate universe where the killings in Halloween are the result of a druidic curse cast by the god Muck Olla, and where E.T. the Extra-terrestrial has the hots for Elliot’s mother. This is a universe where movie novelizations are king.

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The Self-Taught MFA: Novel Idea or Fairy Tale?

September 19th, 2014

Quick! Look out the window. On early autumn mornings, they fill the streets: writers of all types and stripes, skipping down the road to the first day of their MFA. Their brand-new book bags are stuffed with the first drafts these programs promise to lovingly and expertly critique. In their hands they clutch shiny red apples—a love offering for the widely published authors-turned-instructors, who will guide them to similar success.

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Prose & Conversation: 'Jesus' Son' by Denis Johnson

September 18th, 2014

Usually, when Richard and I sit down to talk books for Prose & Conversation, it's early-ish in the day. This time, for Denis Johnson's short story collection, Jesus' Son, it was late at night, and for two writers with families and kids and jobs, that meant it was time for our bleakest, most candid, and sometimes silliest, conversation yet. Read on for thoughts on death and dying, the suddenness with which they can occur, and our take on one of the most lyrical, beautifully dark books we've yet read.

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