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Using Plain Language in Speculative Fiction
August 10th, 2020
One time my daughter walked up to me and said, “There’s a chicken in the wall.” Being a good father to a toddler, I hope, I let her take me over to the wall while I wondered what on Earth she was talking about. We took a few steps and she put her little hands out, cupped in order to cradle this chicken. She let her fingertips brush the paint, got the chicken, then turned to show it to me.
Read Column →Celebrating National Book Lovers' Day
August 7th, 2020
Original photo by Rahul Pandit I wasn’t always a book lover. In fact, when my mom first started teaching me to read, I went down kicking and screaming — metaphorically, of course. I have this clear memory of sitting in my bedroom in our apartment when the door opened and she walked in with one of those learn-to-read books, and I just pitched the mother of all fits. She says I didn’t pitch a fit, but I remember it that way and hey, this is my story.
Read Column →What If Books Aren't The Answer To Our Problems?
August 6th, 2020
I was wrong about what an “adult slumber party” is. Turns out it’s a polite way to advertise that you’ll go to a house and sell a group of people dildos. I was wrong when I figured that red and white wine were interchangeable when you were cooking. I was wrong when I was a kid and I figured if I could get my hands on a big enough TV, I’d have way more lines to the top of the screen, and Tetris would be a snap.
Read Column →The Origin of a Space Parasite
August 5th, 2020
The Parasite From Proto Space & Other Stories, a collection of short fiction and prose by Brett Petersen, is a glimpse into the mind of an autistic savant: a rollercoaster ride through hallucinatory realities subject to shift at any moment. True-to-life characters and their universally human experiences serve as the reader’s guiding thread through the fractal labyrinths of the Squid Universe: a world shaped by mental illness, paranoia, Id-driven language experimentation and theological speculation inspired by the works of Philip K. Dick, H.P.
Read Column →"Cursed": The Road to Redemption Starts with Strong Roots
August 4th, 2020
An outcast sorceress turned queen. A cutthroat fighting to regain his honor. Vikings. A drunk Merlin. Shadow Lords. Crusader monks. A nun who could probably give Pennywise nightmares––or maybe they’d be friends, I’m still not sure. The Netflix adaptation of Thomas Wheeler and Frank Miller’s novel Cursed is packed with a sprawling cast and a wide range of character arcs you’d expect in a book based on the Arthurian legends.
Read Column →The Bloody New Nostalgia of Splatter Westerns
August 3rd, 2020
When I was a kid, my dad loved westerns. He read Louis L’Amour books until he needed entire shelves just for that author. On Saturday afternoons, much to my chagrin, he would take over the TV and binge the old westerns, many in black and white, on the few channels we had. As a kid, I couldn’t really relate at all. Kids born in the 1970s often had fathers born in the 40s and 50s who grew up on a heavy diet of westerns that became deep-set nostalgia by the 80s. My father was fascinated by crime fiction, science fiction, high fantasy, and to a lesser degree, horror too.
Read Column →How Do We Go On Writing Our Little Fictions When Outside The World Is On Fire?
July 29th, 2020
"Fire" by Liz West / Flickr / CC BY 2.0 I’ve never much consi
Read Column →Storyville: Tips, Tricks, and Thoughts on Reprints
July 28th, 2020
There are many different reasons that you should try and get your stories reprinted, so let’s talk about the why, the how, and the various ways that reprints can help your writing career.
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