Columns

Excited About "Lovecraft Country"? Read Victor LaValle's "The Ballad Of Black Tom" First

July 7th, 2020

Last month, HBO released a new teaser trailer for its upcoming series Lovecraft Country, set to premiere in August of this year. The show follows a young Black man, Atticus (Jonathan Majors), as he travels through Jim Crow America with his friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and his Uncle George (Courtney B. Vance), searching for his missing father.

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Stephen King's Nine Worst Books and Why I Still Love Them

July 3rd, 2020

I’m one of Stephen King’s Constant Readers. As such, I joined in with Richard Chizmar from Cemetery Dance when he started his #StephenKingRevisited series. I commenced buying and rereading all of King’s books in the order they were published and wrote my own blog posts before and after each one. I’m on track to finish my reread up through the latest, If It Bleeds, by the end of 2020.

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Beach Reads for Indoor Types

July 2nd, 2020

Trust me, you don’t wanna hit the beach this summer. If you’re a person who fears pandemic, aka someone sane, then I probably don’t need to tell you why. If you’re a person who doesn’t fear illness, let me explain why you don’t want to hit the beach, either:

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A Demigod’s Guide to Defining the New Normal

July 1st, 2020

It’s official, one of our favorite demigods is getting his own Disney+ TV series. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Percy Jackson on screen. Back in 2010 and 2013, The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters were adapted for the big screen. But while fans tolerate the films, they don’t always like to talk about them.

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Storyville: Surviving Rejection

June 29th, 2020

I know you are all out there sending in your stories, getting rejected, and feeling frustrated. It’s tough! I know, I’m out there with you. So I wanted to talk with you today about some of my experiences, my statistics, and how you can survive rejection, and keep submitting until you break through.

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What Neil Breen's 5-Hour Retrospective Taught Me About Making Art

June 26th, 2020

I watched Neil Breen’s 5.5-hour film retrospective about his process. This is the longest single movie I’ve ever watched. The amazing thing about it is the sound quality is horrible, the lighting is terrible, the ADR is lazy, and as a film, it’s abysmal and hard to watch. And damn it, I actually learned something about making art.

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Be Free on George Orwell’s Birthday

June 25th, 2020

Author photo via Wikipedia 1984. Animal Farm. These two classics alone bring chilling images to mind. Too many comparisons have been made to modern day situations, and after recent government measures taken in response to the pandemic and protests—I’m not even going to go there. No one needs that.

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How Many Books Will You Read Before You Die?

June 23rd, 2020

Recent life events. We’ve all had a lot of shit that could fall under “recent life events,” eh? 2020 is the year of “recent life events.” Recent life events got me thinking about death and what I’d like to do before I die. Among other things that don’t warrant mentioning, owning a stand-up arcade machine, and figuring out how to make cats immortal (in a good way, not an evil, Twilight Zone way), I want to read all the shit I want to read.

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I Just Spent A Year Exclusively Reading Women (and I Deserve No Congratulations For This)

June 22nd, 2020

On June 12, 2019, I made the following FaceBook post: I wandered back over to GoodReads for the first time in a while and perused the books I’ve read in my lifetime (I certainly haven’t logged them all there, but it’s close). What struck me in a good way was the variety of novels consumed over the years—not only horror, but sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, noir, and straight-up lit-fic, for lack of a better term. 

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Drunk on Literature: 10 Themed Book and Brew Pairings

June 19th, 2020

Reading and beers make underrated combos, like coffee and salty potato chips. Or Ranch and pizza (hey, I’m American). Reading and whiskey gets you too drunk, too fast. Wine is just so fussy. And it’s summer. Summer is the time for a cold beer and a book on the porch. Let me, someone who’s read a lot and sampled a fair number of beers, give you some pairings.

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