Columns

Small Press Xmas Lit Tour

December 10th, 2021

My mom had this artsy friend who did the best holidays. On Easter, she’d host these massive egg hunts at her house. The eggs were always gorgeous, marbled with layers of waves of color. Usually by the end of the night, she’d be too drunk to remember where she’d stashed all the eggs, her handwritten map disappeared, and dozens of colorful eggs would stay outside until they rotted enough that she could sniff them out.

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Storyville: Dune is an Inspiring Film, and an Excellent Resource for Authors

December 10th, 2021

(There will be spoilers about Dune in this column.) “There is something happening to me. There’s something awakening in my mind, I can’t control it,” Paul says, opening the trailer for Dune. “There’s a crusade coming,” he continues. The book, Dune, is a massive journey, and the reboot of the film is an epic saga, with so much to show us, they could only cover half of it. It’s fantastic.

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8 Holiday Books That Are Not About Christmas

December 9th, 2021

Ah, December—the season of cheer, snow, and lots of time for reading! If you’re looking for something different from your usual Christmas fare to read this year, then this post is for you. Here are eight books perfect for the holiday season that aren’t actually about Christmas. Happy holidays—and even happier reading!

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godless.com and the Evolution of Publishing

December 8th, 2021

godless.com is an ebook distribution platform that includes exclusive content, content also available on Amazon, and a few passthrough links to content godless authors have on Amazon. There is merchandise as well as podcasts. There are original series created by a wide range of authors. The site leans toward extreme horror and splatterpunk, but does include other genres. As time goes on, the offerings have become more diverse. On average, prices tend to be lower than similar books on Amazon.

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LitReactor Staff Picks: The Best Books of 2021 - Part I

December 7th, 2021

Original image via Rodnae Productions Another year has come and gone. You know what that means, don't you? Time for a bunch of strangers to tell you what was good! And why should you care what the LitReactor staff thinks are the best books of the year? Trick question! You shouldn't. But what they have to say might interest you nonetheless, because they are good-looking and knowledgeable and they read like the wind.

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Leave the Fat

December 7th, 2021

When I started writing, it was for defense. It was a way to keep the world at bay by naming it—that way I could tame the big scary uncontrollable mess of reality and force it to make some kind of sense. In order to do that properly, I came up with some rules, some principles for writing that I'd picked up here and there that, when consistently applied, I thought made my work sound serious, and literary, and mature. I got some stuff published at some good places, and I congratulated myself on cracking the code. In truth I had a very long way to go.

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10 Holiday Gifts to Give Your Horror Hound

December 6th, 2021

It would be so much easier to get into the spirit of the holidays if there wasn't all of that pressure to buy gifts for everyone on our lists. It can be so stressful to pick out that perfect present for your loved one and stay in a realistic budget. Sometimes the hardest part is just getting something special and unique instead of heading for that gift card kiosk at the grocery store. Let me help! And it's still early enough that it can be delivered in plenty of time. These are suggestions for the Horror Hound you know who has everything.

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The 12 Days of Writersmas

December 3rd, 2021

Writers are not hard to shop for. I don’t know how writers earned this reputation. Which other professions/hobbies come with this “hard to shop for” nonsense? It’s not like you hear people saying “Tailors are so hard to shop for…” It’s not like writing makes you immune to the charms of a personal hovercraft.

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The Unmistakable Voice of James Robert Baker (1947-1997)

December 2nd, 2021

Author photo via the estate of James Robert Baker Whenever I heard the word ‘transgressive,’ I always thought of it as something like… you know, you’ll read Chuck Palahniuk, Irving Welsh, Brett Easton Ellis — those are the big names you hear. You’re also told they’re very LGBT-friendly authors, but then, when I was reading that stuff, I’m like, ‘Okay, but where’s the gay sex?'

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The Stories and Worlds of Philip K. Dick's Grave

December 1st, 2021

Photos by Peter Derk Philip K. Dick’s stories built worlds where time reversed and people had to be unburied before they suffocated, worlds where people used a store-bought spray product to fix breaks in the fabric of reality, worlds where space travelers competed to bring the best hallucinogens to humanity. The story of Philip K. Dick’s grave also built more than one world, more than one story about how things wound up the way they are.

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