Columns

Up Close and Personal: A Personality Expose of the Personal Essay

October 23rd, 2012

What is a Personal Essay? You probably have a pretty good idea of what an essay is, but if you want to get all technical about it, the word essay has a couple of meanings:

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Recap: The Walking Dead 3.02 - Sick

October 22nd, 2012

Beware spoilers.  The problem with adaptations is that, if you're familiar with the source material, it's hard to buy into the tension. Good writing or a skilled director can sweep you up in the on-screen action, but it's easy to sit there and wait for the next thing you know is coming. 

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Truly SINISTER - The Ten Best True Crime Books

October 22nd, 2012

Sinister is in theaters this month, a horror film telling the story of Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke), a true crime author who moves his family into a house where despicable crimes were once committed. As one might expect, that’s a bad idea. The scares quickly escalate, but Oswalt is so committed to following up his last best-seller with something important, what he calls his In Cold Blood, that he’s not going anywhere until he gets his story.

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Should Some Books Be Banned?

October 19th, 2012

Banned Books Week is over for another year. Did you strike a blow for freedom and read a banned book? I didn’t. The temptation in any article about book banning is to go all Listverse and lay out the top ten for readers' aghast inspection. Look around the web and that’s about the level of the debate: lists plus maybe a commentary on some obvious idiocies -- a Dr Seuss book banned because it advocates suicide, Black Beauty banned in South Africa during apartheid because the authorities believed it promoted miscegenation.

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Creating Your Literary Foundation

October 18th, 2012

Countless authors, regardless of bestselling status; regardless of traditional or self-published success; regardless of education; regardless of class, race, sex, or politics; will boil down the best writing advice you'll ever receive to - read, write, repeat.  Truly, to understand the art of fiction, essay and memoir at its core; to write well; you must have an intense relationship with prose. Reading must be your true love; writing, your love letter.   Recently, I received this question from a LitReactor:

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Is Reading Sexy?

October 18th, 2012

"Nothing about sex is cerebral...at least, none of the good parts are."--Chuck Klosterman

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Primer: Neil Gaiman, Storyteller

October 17th, 2012

Here’s the thing about Neil Gaiman-- he’s a great writer, but an even better storyteller. It's not a skill-mix that all writers have, but it's one that Gaiman has perfected; the ability to tell a tale, spin a yarn, weave a story no matter the place, the time or the medium. Which is not to say that it's effortless--a lot of work goes into his projects to be sure--but he often makes them feel effortless. He taps into that ancient ritual of mankind-- telling one another stories-- whether they be legends or myths or fairy tales.

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kirks test colum

October 16th, 2012

Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet ground round pancetta tenderloin fatback tail strip steak. Chuck biltong pork, corned beef fatback tri-tip capicola sausage cow. Tongue corned beef pancetta ground round shank, leberkas salami andouille ribeye. Corned beef tenderloin kielbasa sirloin, pastrami ball tip capicola t-bone rump swine venison pig turkey spare ribs. Shankle short loin corned beef, flank pork loin jowl fatback. Capicola t-bone ground round, frankfurter pork loin biltong tri-tip tongue pancetta shank fatback.

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Adventures In Self-Publishing Part 3: So, Can We Talk About Some Stuff?

October 16th, 2012

It's an oft-repeated piece of advice in the realm of self-publishing: you get out what you put in. The harder you work, the more copies you sell; nothing sells in a vacuum, and you can't expect to climb the ranks by sitting around and doing nothing.  That's true! I know because I've been extremely busy this month, and haven't been able to dedicate much time to convincing people to buy my novella, and as you can see from the numbers below, my lack of effort shows. 

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Recap: The Walking Dead 3.01 - Seed

October 15th, 2012

Spoilers! The cold open for The Walking Dead's third season makes this feel like a completely different show.  The economy of it is spectacular: the survivors converge on a house. They sweep through to secure it and forage for supplies. They find nothing, and ultimately have to retreat once they realize they've been flanked by a crowd of zombies.

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