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Showing 3536 Columns
Showing 3536 Columns
October 11th, 2021
We had Clive Barker’s short story: Candyman Then we had a trilogy of movies: Candyman Candyman Candyman And now, with Candyman (2021), we’ve said his name for the fifth time: Candyman
Read Column →October 8th, 2021
10 years ago, I made my LitReactor debut with an article about brainstorming story ideas for National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo). I find this hilarious now since I only ever did NaNoWriMo once—in 2010—and I’ve never done one since. Not because it’s not a great idea, but because I had my first kid in early 2012 and I haven’t had 2 minutes to myself ever since.
Read Column →October 5th, 2021
Quilt image via the Smithsonian, Author Photo via Twitter As a culture, we’re obsessed with news. We doom scroll through repeated facts and conjecture, absorbing the shrieks of the chorus, constructing a hierarchy of information based on whoever shouts loudest, and first. Then we move onto the next novelty, leaving the old one to rot, often uncorroborated, half-told, sometimes outright wrong.
Read Column →October 1st, 2021
Happy Birthday, LitReactor! Or should I say, Happy Anniversary? What difference does it make? LitReactor has been around for a solid 10 years now, and either way, we are celebrating! I remember our first post like it was yesterday: a news item on a HuffPo feature about our launch. In the final line of the article, author Andrew Losowsky poses the question:
Read Column →September 30th, 2021
I might not have degenerative dementia. That’s not as comforting as the doctor telling me that I definitely don’t have degenerative dementia, because what he’s really saying is that I might actually have it. He’s saying that because I have symptoms of degenerative dementia. As a full-time author, as a creative person, as a husband, as a father, and simply as a human being, I find this prospect troubling for a lot of reasons
Read Column →September 28th, 2021
Image via RODNAE Productions The following is a story I wrote about the story I refused to write.
Read Column →September 27th, 2021
Author photo via Wikipedia I first became interested in Alan Watts after a conversation with Matt Cardin on the This Is Horror Podcast where he recommended reading The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety.
Read Column →September 24th, 2021
When we think of banned books, it’s often dramatic book-burning scenes or obviously controversial books like American Psycho or The Satanic Verses that first come to mind.
Read Column →September 23rd, 2021
Yahoo! Answers is dead. But from Late 2005 to May 2021, it was the primary place to ask questions about, well, everything. You'd get terrible, poorly formed advice riddled with grammatical errors, but damn was it fun. Sadly, some questions remain unanswered. Which is why I dug back through questionable internet history to make sure everyone got definitive replies about about plot holes, reading methods, writing, and how babby is formed.
Read Column →September 22nd, 2021
All images via David James Keaton This summer, I stayed at a cabin in the woods hoping for inspiration to strike but read my first Jack Reacher novel instead. I ended up choosing Die Trying, a.k.a. Jack Reacher number 2 (not just because it took place in a cabin in the woods) and holy balls did it have a lot of shrugging in it! But let me back up. I know, I know, everyone hates an origin story. Sorry in advance…
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