Columns

LURID: Season Of The Witch

March 21st, 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.

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High Priest of the Godless: A Jim Thompson Primer

March 20th, 2013

Before there was film noir, there was the roman noir, the dark novel. What Americans of the mid-twentieth century called pulp fiction was simply the contemporary incarnation of the dime novel or penny dreadful of the previous century. The lurid stories behind the lurid covers were considered lowbrow trash and indeed, many of them aspired to be nothing but the same. But one man’s trash is another man’s dark worldview, as evinced by the French embrace of these tales from the godless gutter of the New World.

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The Write Time: 6 Strategies to Make Your Writing Schedule Sacred

March 20th, 2013

The truth is chilling: Only a small percentage of those who graduate from MFA writing programs actually keep writing. Many give up their creative pursuits immediately after getting their diploma. Others write for a few years, but are so bruised by repeated rejection that they abandon the dream. If these are the people who devoted tens of thousands of dollars, along with a half-dozen years of school, to writing—what sort of odds does that give the rest of the writing community?

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Notes from the Drunken Editor: The Poisonous Psychos of the Writing World

March 19th, 2013

I've just returned from the 2013 AWP conference in Boston. I met many writers, many publishers, and many people who would like to be writers and are looking for publishers.

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Ask The Agent: Marketing to a Middle Grade Audience, Having Multiple Agents and More

March 18th, 2013

Navigating the rough terrain of today’s publishing industry shouldn’t be a solo event. This week in Ask the Agent, I’ll explore and dissect a few of the industry’s mysteries, straight from the shoulder.

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10 More Words You Literally Didn't Know You Were Getting Wrong

March 15th, 2013

Original header image by Andrea Piacquadio Last October, I gave you 10 Words You Literally Didn't Know You Were Getting Wrong, and it generated a lot of discussion about common usage, which is often incorrect or imprecise usage; and good usage, which is usually the best way to use a word.

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Library Love: Your Library's Disgusting Friends

March 15th, 2013

[Photo by Comtesse DeSpair]

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Sixguns & Sorcery: The Weird Western

March 14th, 2013

One of the great things about fantasy fiction is that it mixes well. Fantasy elements can be added to most other types of fiction quite easily. Mix it with noirish mystery and you get urban fantasy. Stir it with science fiction and you get science fantasy. Splash it on romance and you get paranormal romance.

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Finding Your Writing Rhythm

March 13th, 2013

[Pictured: Legendary drummer Neil Peart] The question was to be expected. It's asked almost every time you put a group of authors in front of an audience. "How do you become a writer?" The student who asked the question was younger than the four us on the science fiction panel at Comic Con Portland. It usually works that way. I gave the obvious answer. "Write," I said. Then I followed up by saying, "and make sure you call yourself a writer."

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Comic Book Death Is Irrelevant

March 13th, 2013

It’s one of the first things you learn as a comics reader — don’t get too emotionally invested in the death of a character, cause they’ll be back. Usually before you can even miss them. The latest to suffer an irrelevant death is Batman’s most recent Robin, aka Damian Wayne, Batman’s son, aka the grouchiest Boy Wonder ever. This death, spoiled prior to the release of the comic just about everywhere, was a long-planned plot point of Grant Morrison’s in his Batman Inc. series. While the book itself (Batman Inc.

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