Columns

Ten Unbeatable Holiday Gifts for Book Lovers

December 6th, 2013

Sure, you could put on actual pants to go partake in some door-bustin’ shenanigans at the mall, but between jingling bells, decking halls, and consuming your body weight in holiday cookies, who has time for that? Not you, my friend. Not you. Know what else you don’t have time for? Sifting through page after page of Mega Lightning Cyber Xtreme Deals, hoping to stumble upon the perfect gift for your loved ones. No!

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Prose & Conversation: 'The Shining' and 'Doctor Sleep'

December 5th, 2013

Back in August, my Post-Mortem column about Stephen King's classic work, It, garnered a lot of hits and spurred a lot of conversation. It also sparked a fun idea: Wouldn't it be awesome to host an online book club, talking about older books and re-reading the works we once loved? Then, with the release of Doctor Sleep in September, the idea went a little further, as a Twitter conversation about the book reached near-epic proportions.

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Imaginary Audience: 6 Tips on Envisioning Your Readership

December 5th, 2013

One of the best pieces of advice I've been given is to richly imagine the audience I'm writing for. As a broad abstraction, this advice easily comes off as either useless or obvious. In this article I'm going to try to move away from the abstraction by giving you some concrete advice on how you can use this strategy effectively.

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Christmas Bummers: 5 Books to Wallow In During the Holidays

December 3rd, 2013

Sick of the holidays yet? Drowned in enough comfort and joy to last longer than you care to live? Having daydreams of torching somebody’s jolly yard display? Cutesy elves charred to a satisfying crisp? Roasted Rudolf? Santa scorching on an open fire? If so, I’m with you. Scrooge got it right the first time.

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5 Words to Be Grateful For

November 28th, 2013

In this season of harvest, bounty, and gratitude, let us take a few moments to thank the bread and butter of our profession: words. They sustain us in times of deep anxiety; they’re our best friends, especially when other humans become intolerable. Here are five words I’m particularly thankful for — in no particular order — because they’re either especially vital or oddly funny sounding. Or both.

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UPDATED WITH WINNER: LitReactor's Flash (Crime) Fiction Smackdown: November Edition

November 27th, 2013

Flash (Crime) Fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity—and crime! 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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Cataloguing Your Influences

November 27th, 2013

I’ve always shied away from the questions, “Who do you read?” and “Who are your influences?” On one hand, I've always found my mind blanking when asked those questions, thus making me look like a word-fumbling moron; on the other hand, those questions always reminded me of that scene in The Third Man, when pulp writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) is inadvertently wrangled into a Q&A with a snooty book appreciation society.

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Culling The Classics: The Chronicles of Narnia

November 27th, 2013

Forget J.F.K., the grassy knoll, and any conspiracies theories you were planning to debunk this month, because November 22nd marks the 50th anniversary of a much bigger tragedy: the death of C.S. Lewis, author of the classic children's series, The Chronicles of Narnia. Clive Staples Lewis (or "Jack" as his old buddy John Ronald Reuel called him, another spooky J.F.K. parallel) was one of the most influential English writers of the 20th century. To celebrate the man's life 50 years after his death, to celebrate his 115th birthday (Nov.

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A Thankful Writer's Top 10 List

November 26th, 2013

It's November, which means Facebook's alight with thousands of "I'm thankful" posts. While 30 Days of Thankful feels overwhelming to me (and sometimes forced and a bit saccharine), I wondered what would happen if I tried to list items for which I'm thankful, with a bit of a writer's slant. Here's what I came up with...my Thankful Writer's Top Ten List.

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Snark is a Dead Scene: Why It's Time For Writers to Try Something New

November 26th, 2013

Illustration by Henry Holiday is public domain For those of you who read a column's title and sprint for the comments, pants around your ankles in anticipation of the self-righteous hot and coily you intend to deposit, let me preface this by saying I'm guilty of everything I'm about to address. So save the figurative unleashing of your bowels for someone else. This isn't the proper forum for such leavings, and you risk leaving skidmarks on the underwear of your reputation. That being said...

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