Columns

Library Love: Archives - The Hidden Room of Research

September 4th, 2012

If you haven’t read Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches, it’s worth a try. There are witches, vampires, and demons spelled with an “a,” not to mention a heroine who spends days researching and consulting manuscripts at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It got me thinking about rare materials and archives, and how truly foreign and inaccessible they seem. “Serious scholarship” is somehow embedded in the word “archives,” leaving them a mystery to most.

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Ask The Agent: Clarifying Industry Semantics and Advice on How to Become an Agent!

September 3rd, 2012

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 two of the industry’s mysteries, straight from the shoulder. Question from Heidi Could you talk about the differences between query letter, cover letter, and pitch? These three items are very much the same thing, but in different contexts.

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New Release Roundup: Recommendations for September 2012

September 3rd, 2012

Every month I'll be toiling in the dank, dark mines of literary obscurity, scouring the catalogues of every major publisher to bring the LitReactor faithful a few choice titles hitting the shelves. The following is a brief look at what's worth checking out in September. Full disclosure: unless otherwise noted, none of the below books have been reviewed by myself or other LitReactor staff. These are just a few recommendations based on publisher's notes and my own opinions. Without further ado:

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A Game of Literary F, Marry, Kill

August 31st, 2012

Alright people, time for a little Friday fun. Who's up for a rousing game of F Marry Kill, but with a literary twist?

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Top 10 Reasons People Use To Justify Pirating Digital Content (And Why They’re Wrong)

August 31st, 2012

Pirating digital content is illegal. Full stop.  Yet people continually steal eBooks and movies and television shows and treat it like it's no big deal. There's a couple of reasons it happens: Torrenting is easy and the chance of getting caught is low. And saving money is fun, especially when the economy isn't at its strongest. But an eBook is a luxury, not a right. If you can't afford it, too bad, but that's life. 

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UPDATED WITH WINNER: LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown: August Edition

August 31st, 2012

Flash fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity. How This Works We give you something. It could be a picture or an idea or a sentence. You write a flash fiction piece, using the thing we gave you as inspiration. Put your entry in the comments section. One winner will be picked, and awarded a prize.

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The Good, The Bad, and The Sadly Deluded: Actors Who Write

August 30th, 2012

If there’s one commodity actors are not short of, it’s ego. The trouble with egos is that they’re very like the insatiable plant in Little Shop of Horrors (feed me Seymour!): demanding of constant sustenance. Acting is rarely enough for most actors. In their search for a bigger share of the spotlight, some actors turn to directing, some to music. Some even turn to art. And some – inevitably - turn to writing.

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Storyville: The Horror of Editing and Revision

August 29th, 2012

Okay, if you love editing your writing, raise your hand. Come on now, don’t be shy, who loves to pour over their work cutting, pasting, cutting, adding, all of that stuff? Anybody? You in the back, put your hand down, you’re a freak. Nobody likes to edit, to proof their own work. It’s a slow, painful process. But if you can get over the worry and fear and self-doubt that is constantly trying to worm its way into your writing, maybe we can get through this together.

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Clause I Said So: A Refresher Course On Sentence Types

August 29th, 2012

No matter the content, the inspiration, or the writer, a good piece of writing is only as strong as its sentences. In the creative writing world, practically anything is possible. Crack a novel and you will find alternative punctuation, clever sentence fragments, and creative twists on traditional grammar and usage. That’s what makes writing and literature fun and exciting. However, if you’ve read any of my articles, you’ve probably gleaned by now that I advocate knowing the rules before you break them.

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Taking From the World Tree: Mythology and Cultural Appropriation

August 28th, 2012

Mythology has long been a source of inspiration, and indeed material, for those writing fantasy fiction. One of the gold standard examples I always use is J. R. R. Tolkien, whose Lord of the Rings universe was influenced by Norse mythology. Tolkien’s creation took a much different form, but there are echoes of these myths in Middle-Earth and beyond.

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