Columns

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.

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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.

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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.

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"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.

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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.

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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

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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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How to Purge the Thousand Story Ideas Running Around In Your Head

July 27th, 2020

Original image by Kevin Mueller, via Unsplash Because we make good movie decisions, my girlfriend and I watched The Boy.

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How To Read Between The Lines of Your Rejections

July 24th, 2020

photos by Steve Johnson & Lad Fury Here’s the sad truth: 95% of your submissions will be rejected. Or maybe it’s 98%. Or maybe 99% — what do I know? I’m a writer, not a math…person. 

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A Brilliant Birthday History for the Brilliant Alexandre Dumas

July 24th, 2020

Image via Wikipedia Le Trois Mousquetaires and Le Comte de Monte Cristo, better known to the English reading world as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, were hatched from one of the greatest creative minds of the 19th century. Alexandre Dumas wrote as indulgently as he lived.

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