Columns

The Poetry of Wicked Mercy

May 18th, 2021

The fourth poem in my debut full-length poetry collection, Salamat sa Intersectionality, describes a specific scene in Nevada, my half-home state (the other half being California). Nevada’s vast expanses of wilderness, its stretches of mountains, and its shifting tones of dirt aren’t foreign subjects to me, as I’ve reflected on these idyllic aspects of the state in many other pieces. However, in this poem, simply titled “Nevada,” I explore a different sense of love entangled with what I believe is an act of mercy.

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Telling the Story of a Pandemic and the Future of Now

May 17th, 2021

Header image by Jernej Furman A little over a year ago, Stephen King sat down with NPR to reflect on writing horror during a time when reality was as frightening as one of his novels. He made note of how difficult it was to set fiction in the year 2020, a time when many normal activities abruptly became impossible.

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10 Books For the Flight to Mars

May 14th, 2021

Image free for use from Pixabay Between the exploits of SpaceX making regular news, the successful landing of NASA’s Perseverance rover a few months ago, and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter becoming the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet, it&#

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Video Games as Literature: A Defense of the Medium

May 13th, 2021

The whole "video games can be art" argument has been done to death. Despite this, the medium is still looked down on and its capabilities are often disregarded. Whether you're a literature enthusiast or a writer yourself, viewing games as a form of literature can crack open a new world of stories. This is not merely because games can present book-like stories between gameplay segments: The medium can do a great deal that other mediums simply can't.

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'The Falcon and The Winter Soldier' Fumbles at the Finish Line

May 12th, 2021

Let me make this clear from the top: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is not a bad show. That’s not what I’m saying. It is five and a half really great episodes of polished MCU action with an underwhelming finale. While that isn’t enough to sour the whole experience, it is a curiously middling end to an otherwise well-crafted adventure.

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Content Marketing for Authors

May 11th, 2021

If you don’t know what content marketing is, and if you’re not using it to sell books, give me a few minutes and I'll give you a whole new world of marketing options. And if you’re a writer who hates marketing, read on. What It Is Basic, real-world definition, not some Webster’s bullshit:

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When the Answer Isn't Always Edgar Allan Poe

May 10th, 2021

Plath & Poe images public domain, Simic image by SLOWKING (GFDL) Edgar Allan Poe introduced most of us to horror—and to horror poetry—but for me, the writers who

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Blackout Poetry: New Interest in an Old Artform

May 7th, 2021

All the poetry images in this article used by permission of the poet, Jessica McHugh. Blackout poetry has been called a number of different things across time. It’s been called redacted poetry/writing, found poetry, erasure poetry, and it crosses over into cutout poetry and collage art.

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Gary Snyder: The Last Remaining Beat

May 6th, 2021

Photo via Wikipedia Commons Gary Snyder is one of the last living members of the Beat Generation. Sort of. He is alive—he turns 91 this month—and he knew many of the most famous Beats, like Kerouac and Ginsberg.

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Mistakes I Made With My Self-Published Book Covers

May 3rd, 2021

I’ve committed the worst sin of self-publishing. No, not failing to hire an editor (well, okay, I did that one, too. A bunch of times). No, not falsely representing myself to try and get my books on digital platforms used for library checkouts (wait, I TOTALLY did that one, and I won’t apoogize). I must confess: I made my own covers.

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