Columns

UPDATED WITH WINNER - LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown: August Edition

August 29th, 2014

Flash fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity. Welcome to LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown, a monthly bout of writing prowess. How It Works We give you inspiration in the form of a picture, poem, video, or similar. You write a flash fiction piece using the inspiration we gave you. Put your entry in the comments section. One winner will be picked and awarded a prize.

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What Are Trademarks and Do I Need Them?

August 29th, 2014

Some good friends of mine run a popular blog.  It’s a hobby for them, but a successful hobby that they’ve worked hard at over the years. They've managed to gain an engaged and loyal following. They have well-known contributors from the industry, and have built up a credible reputation in their niche. So how do you think they felt when a registered company with a national brand came along and nicked their name?

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Product Review: Marvin

August 28th, 2014

We all know the two big eReaders on the market right now, Kindle and Apple iBooks. I have no actual numbers behind this statement, but most of the people I know use (sometimes religiously) one of the two, with generally more Kindle fans due to the wider selection. And yet, many of those people use Amazon begrudgingly—they like the broad selection, low weight and simple note-taking/highlighting capabilities of eBooks, but they're not fans of Amazon's business practices.

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The Basics of Starting a Writing Group

August 27th, 2014

So, you’ve decided to start a writing group? Congratulations, you have just taken the first step down a path that can enlighten and strengthen your writing, or just as easily weaken your mind and destroy your friendships. Isn’t that exciting?

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Engineering the Perfect Campfire Tale

August 27th, 2014

August and September are some of the best months of the year for camping. The bugs have died down, and the weather’s cooler and drier than in July. For thousands of years, camping has held an intimate connection with storytelling. Wherever humans gather around food and a fire, there are guaranteed to be tales of monsters and heroic deeds, of faraway lands and strange cultures.

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Can We Build It?: 5 DIY Bookshelves

August 26th, 2014

More than anything, the advance of Pinterest has provided me with a deep understanding of just how shabby my life is. Never before was I aware of all the custom wooden blocks that hold wine bottles at decadent angles. How chalkboards fill people's lives with motivational slogans. How there's nothing that can't be improved with a painted-on ship's anchor. Every food is cooked on a wooden plank, and every drink is quaffed from an embellished Ball jar. Bamboo is the new hardwood, concrete the new granite.

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6 YA Novels That Deal With Mental Health

August 25th, 2014

Young Adult novels have never shied away from tough subjects, and when it comes to mental health, there’s a wealth of novels that treat the topic with the gravitas and sincerity necessary to open a larger dialogue. From a quirky look at obsessive compulsive disorder, to the very raw and traumatic experience of post traumatic stress disorder, these six novels explore the rocky terrain of mental health.

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Let's Talk Literature: 6 Books That Are Great Conversation Starters

August 25th, 2014

I was seventeen and reading The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson at a café near my New Jersey home, expecting a quiet afternoon to myself. Instead, I was interrupted mid-chapter. A fellow leaned over and asked me how I liked the book so far. We began talking about it, and pretty soon we were talking about other books we liked, films we liked, and soon, just about our lives in general. I didn’t finish the book that day as I had planned, but I did engage in a really surprising, delightful conversation.

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On Tom Cruise and Time Travel Stories

August 22nd, 2014

Thing is, this is all Tom Cruise’s fault. His last two movies were science fiction and so I kinda had to see them. To be fair, I saw Edge of Tomorrow first. Based on the Japanese light novel, All You Need is Kill, the movie took the central conceit of Groundhog Day (the endless time loop) and grafted it onto the backdrop of Starship Troopers. It was good — funny, smart, entertaining. 

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What Ever Happened To The Oscar-Nominated Horror Film?

August 22nd, 2014

Let me get this column started by stating I don't actually put much stock into the Academy Awards as a true barometer of cinematic quality, at least in terms of the big winners every year. More often than not, the "losers" of the evening are far better than the winners. But it is an honor to be acknowledged for your efforts, no matter who's doing the acknowledging, and the Oscars continue to be a big deal.

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