Columns

The Banality of Evil In Fiction

March 24th, 2022

Just in case you don’t feel like reading this whole article, let’s get this out of the way: Don’t write a character who’s evil because “he has an uncontrollable lust for power.” That shit is boring. There’s no story in it. I’d love to tell you more if you’ve got a minute, but if you're busy, just know that a character who is evil because he’s a power-mongering evildoer is a snooze. A Little More Hey, you stuck around! Good on you. And me.

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A Tour Through The Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy at UC Riverside

March 23rd, 2022

Header and photos by Annie Connole I had been itching to visit the Eaton Collection since last year, when our local Space Cowboy Books did a live online interview with its curators; exploring the aisles, behind the scenes inner-workings, and history of one our country’s largest archival collections of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. When my pitches opened up, I made sure it would be my next piece for Lit Reactor — a two birds with one stone reason to finally bask in its hallowed walls.

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How to Keep Your Head Up When Publishing is Hell

March 22nd, 2022

I started querying my first novel in December 2014. I was a senior in college, and had spent the summer leading up to that Christmas query-fest googling things like “how to get published” and “agents who represent YA novels.” I got a bunch of rejections and a handful of partial requests, and have this distinct memory of sitting in my therapist’s office before spring break, telling her about one of the requests, stars in my eyes as I fantasized about my dreams coming true in the next few weeks. 

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Storyville: From Baseline to Variation—How to Set and Expand Expectations

March 21st, 2022

In the past I’ve spoken in this column about setting up horror stories before tearing it all down, how to use Freytag to create your structure, and the balance between terror (suspense, clues, hints, foreshadowing) and horror (the reveal, the violence, the truth, the monstrou

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Bookstore Nightmares

March 18th, 2022

TONIGHT on Bookstore Nightmares: Denver, Colorado. Home of the Rocky Mountains, Rockies baseball, and an indie bookstore with a rocky sales season. After a smooth takeoff, Jerry’s was flying high, selling lots of books and making lots of readers happy. But the store hit some turbulence, and now it’s in a tailspin, the pilot is drunk, and there’s nowhere close by to land, it’s all volcanoes and spikes, and the only person who is sleeping through all of it is having night terrors.

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5 Short Speculative Stories with Unusual Formats

March 17th, 2022

Short stories are such an incredible form of creativity; they present writers with the challenge to hook readers in immediately, keep them invested, and complete an arc all within a few thousand words. I’m particularly fond of stories that play with experimental forms, and since horror and speculative fiction focus so much on building dread, pushing boundaries, and leading readers into the unknown, it’s the perfect arena to try out unconventional formats. It can be a rewarding experience as a reader, and also a moment of inspiration and learning as a writer.

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Do It For The Kids: I Wrote A Book On Sylvia Plath That I Wish I Had As A Teenager

March 16th, 2022

In Ten Things I Hate About You, protagonist Kat Stratford sits in a plush armchair, reading a comically large copy of Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar. The subtext is obvious: here’s a girl who is done giving fucks. Throughout the film, Kat grapples with the patriarchal bullshit that all nerdy, bookish girls deal with in high school — with Sylvia as an unspoken guiding muse. I was grateful for this goofy but endearing movie because I also walked around high school wielding The Bell Jar like a warning.

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That Swag: Book Promotion Ideas

March 14th, 2022

SWAG or SCHWAG? Before we dive into this topic, let me first qualify the usage of the word swag. A few years ago, I posted a photo of my "swag bag" on Twitter and a publisher told me the correct word is schwag. I'm not suggesting the publisher is wrong but: I did some research and fell down a rabbit hole of reddit threads and urban dictionary entries involving Yiddish translations and slang for shitty, dime bag weed.

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When Authors Read Their Own Audiobooks

March 10th, 2022

I’m on the march through an audiobook read by the author, and let me tell you, it’s about as painful an experience as getting a vasectomy. And the vasectomy has a slight advantage because it only takes 15 minutes. When should authors read their own audiobooks? And when should they turn it over to the pros? What happens when an author reads their own work?

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10 Books to Celebrate Women's History this March

March 8th, 2022

It’s March, and that means it’s Women’s History Month, in which we celebrate the mark women have made on the world. I have fond memories of teasing one of my middle school classmates, a boy, for being born on Mar. 8, aka International Women’s Day — mostly because i was 12 and that stuff was funny back then, but also because it means even at the age of 12, I was aware of this important celebration.

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