Columns

The Only Question Every Story Must Answer

February 26th, 2013

It’s happened to all of us at one time or another, and far too often for some. Maybe I’m just getting old and cranky, but it seems to be occurring with alarming frequency as of late. You know that sinking feeling that sets in after you’ve read a significant portion of a story and come to the sudden realization that not only do you no longer care what happens, but maybe you never did. How could this happen?

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Author Beware: New Lit Mags

February 26th, 2013

Join a writers’ forum and it won’t take more than a week or two before it happens: the post about how so-and-so has just launched their new online lit mag and they are actively looking for submissions for whatever genre and length. “Check out our official submissions guidelines for more info” they’ll say, at which point, you follow the link and see if any of your pieces fit the bill.

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Embracing the Impossible: The Fantastical Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

February 25th, 2013

Over 125 years after his creation, Sherlock Holmes remains a beloved character. Just in the past few years we’ve had a second feature film starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and two television series depicting him in the modern day (the BBC’s Sherlock and CBS’s Elementary).

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Seduction of the Innocent: The Story Behind the Story

February 25th, 2013

I was asked recently if I had any good writing advice I might share.  I’m afraid I fell back on that old wheeze, “Write what you know,” because there’s truth in it, and also because I couldn’t think of anything better.  This advice, while valid, gets tricky in the case of genre writing – if you grow up quietly in a small town in Iowa, as I did, and what you love to read is mystery novels...in particular tough-guy private eye novels...how exactly do you apply that advice, anyway?  I had never worked my way to Europe on a tramp steamer, le

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How the Superheroes of Literature can save you from the Grammar Nazis

February 22nd, 2013

We’ve all met a Grammar Nazi: those people who think it is their iron-clad duty not to comment on the rhythm of your prose or the strength of your arguments, but on the fact that you missed an apostrophe in the second line of paragraph three.

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Book vs. Film: Warm Bodies

February 22nd, 2013

Contains Spoilers This month saw the release of Jonathan Levine’s adaptation of Isaac Marion’s zombie romance novel Warm Bodies. [record scratch] Hold up – zombie romance? Yep, that’s what I’m telling you. Isaac Marion’s book is a Night of the Living Dead take on Romeo and Juliet. Romero and Juliet, if you will. (You probably won’t, and who could blame you?)

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Notes from the Drunken Editor: How To Fail and Why You Should Keep Failing

February 20th, 2013

Let's talk about failure. Failure is, after all, the great unmentionable. We pay no attention to failure until we see some cultural or corporate Goliath fall to its knees. Enron goes down, we pay attention. The United States invades Iraq — and things go a little wrong — sure, we're watching. Critics of the West's celebrity culture often point out how the media sensationalizes the trivial and, by omission, trivializes what is of true importance.

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5 Ways Looking At Comics Can Help The CWs "Amazon"

February 19th, 2013

With the news that the CW’s Wonder Woman adaption Amazon is living in a sort of limbo— its script still unapproved (or unseen) and thus pilot unordered, the search for a lead actress an ongoing process— those of us that would love to see a good Wonder Woman show are anxious. But then, we’re always anxious.

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COUNTERPOINT: We Shouldn't Be Giving Lena Dunham a Break

February 18th, 2013

It’s a dangerous position to qualify solidarity. Those with whom you stand will feel as though your inability or lack of desire to come over completely to their side indicates a weakness of character, or that it calls into question your stated loyalties altogether. Those to whom you find yourself opposed are likely to feel the same way, although they might add insult to injury by insinuating that you are perhaps too stupid to realize what your position is, and that you were really with them in the first place.

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O-day ou-yay eak-spay ingon-Klay?: Exploring constructed languages

February 18th, 2013

Unlike English or Mandarin, a constructed language (or conlang) is a language that did not evolve naturally over time, rather it was made up by a specific group of people (or by a person) for a specific use. There are hundreds of such languages in existence, and you probably know a few. Ig-pay atin-lay ing-ray an ell-bay? laH SoH jatlh tlhIngan?  True, Pig Latin and Klingon were are created for very different reasons, but they are both considered languages.

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