Columns

8 Awesome Word-Nerd Games

December 20th, 2013

I'm a huge fan of word- and story-based games. Whether you're looking for a (belated) gift for your favorite writer or you're finally getting enough time off that you'll have the chance to play word-nerd games with friends and family, this is definitely the season for playing. I'm going to show off eight of my favorites and tell you why these games are especially great for writers.

Read Column →

LitReactor Staff Picks: The Best Books of 2013 (Part 2)

December 20th, 2013

Previously: LitReactor Staff Picks: The Best Books of 2013 Part 1

Read Column →

Book vs. Film: 'A Christmas Carol' vs. 'Scrooged'

December 20th, 2013

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has had more film adaptations than just about any other book in the English language, beginning all the way back in 1901 with a silent short titled Marley’s Ghost.  Ebenezer Scrooge has been reinterpreted not only by live actors, but by Mickey Mouse, Mister Magoo, and the Muppets. Anyone who’s ever watched television around the holidays is likely to already have a firm understanding of the story, as well as who Ebenezer Scrooge is and what he’s supposed to look like.

Read Column →

Five Failed Attempts to Bring Superheroes to TV

December 19th, 2013

It wasn’t always so hard to do superheroes on TV. Back in the early days, when expectations were far lower, there were a few successes like Adventures of Superman, Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk. Classics of their time, to be sure, but they haven’t aged well. Although superheroes have ruled at the box office for the better part of a decade, every attempt to duplicate that success on TV has fallen hilariously flat. Below, you will find five of the worst offenders.

Read Column →

Just Give Me a Gift Card: A Holiday Lament for Book-Lovers

December 19th, 2013

The plight of the modern book-lover is pretty grim during the holidays. We should be rejoicing, for this is the perfect time to get free books, and yet we live in fear that under each layer of festive wrapping paper lies an embarrassment. One that we will make us cringe inwardly while we don a fake smile and thank Uncle Dave for the uninteresting, uninspired paperback he pulled off the shelf in the grocery store check-out line. So let us commiserate, fellow book-lovers, for the time of despair is nigh upon us once more.

Read Column →

LURID: Macabre Christmas - M.R. James

December 18th, 2013

LURID: vivid in shocking detail; sensational, horrible in savagery or violence, or, a guide to the merits of the kind of Bad Books you never want your co-workers to know you're reading. The stories themselves do not make any very exalted claim. If any of them succeed in causing their readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying fire in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been attained.

Read Column →

Want To Be A Better Writer? Take Acting Classes

December 18th, 2013

In previous columns, I’ve been forthright about my background in film, specifically screenwriting. But you may not know that I also studied theatre (one credit shy of a double major, in fact), and while I primarily considered myself a director, I also acted in eight plays. Without sounding too much like a blowhard, I think I did a pretty good job, and many of the lessons I learned as an actor have carried over into my fiction writing. 

Read Column →

Wassailing with Wenceslas - Christmas Carol Origins

December 17th, 2013

We all know the words, but what do they really mean? Here I explain the origins of a few holiday song lyrics that have always baffled me. To start with, though, what is a "carol" to being with?

Read Column →

LitReactor Staff Picks: The Best Books of 2013 (Part 1)

December 17th, 2013

Another year has come and gone. [Insert trite analogy about fluttering book pages HERE.] You know what that means, don't you? Time for a bunch of strangers to tell you what was good! And why should you care what the LitReactor writers think are the best books of the year? Trick question! You shouldn't. But what they have to say might interest you nonetheless, because they are handsome and knowledgeable and they read like the wind. So for those who care, we submit for your approval/derision some of LitReactor's favorite reads of 2013.

Read Column →

The Ten Bookshots Reviews that Forced Me Yet Again into the Eager Tentacles of Amazon

December 16th, 2013

Book reviews are for me what shoe shops are to a foot fetishist: a source of terrible, yet wonderful temptation. I don’t lick the windows, but sometimes, I come close. When I set up Bookshots, I knew that posting all those reviews was only going to make that temptation stronger, but what I hadn’t counted on was just how seductively those reviews would read.

Read Column →