Columns

Comics vs. Television: "Locke & Key" — Skip The Show, Read The Comics

April 13th, 2020

I’m not surprising the world by saying, “The book is better.” I know this is not mind-blowing news, but in this case it’s news you need to hear. Not because the series of comics by Joe Hill is better, but because the comics are MUCH better. And because so many plot points carried over in the show, you really can’t watch the show first, then read the book. If you watch the show, you’ll ruin the much better experience of the book.

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Why Genre Writers Should Read Poetry

April 10th, 2020

Original header images via Sofia Garza & Andrea Piacquadio Before Rian Johnson became a symbol of the last decade’s nerd cultural proxy war, he made a great neo-noir-YA film called Brick. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a loner who still knows all the highs school cliques and uses them to help find his lost girlfriend. I relate to the character in how I interact and intersect with all the macro and micro literary scenes.

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So, Was Shakespeare An Anti-Semite Or Not?

April 9th, 2020

image courtesy Wikimedia Commons This month, Shakespeare turns 456 years old (the exact date of his birth is unknown). Anytime I hear the Bard's name, I almost always think of this English professor I had in college whose speciality was Shakespeare, and who taught a class devoted exclusively to the study of his plays. 

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Is Blending Genres the Worst Idea You've Ever Had?

April 7th, 2020

Original image via Aa Dil There are a lot of ways to get cross-genre stories wrong. If you are well read in multiple genres, you are in good shape. Knowing one genre well and another just a little might work, too, but ultimately knowledge reigns supreme. You need a firm grasp on the rules of each genre before you break them and mix them together in your literary blender. If you are not familiar with the various genres you’re blending, you are playing a risky game.

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A Poetry FAQ for Regular Folks

April 6th, 2020

Header image by Brad Neathery via Unsplash Poetry and country music have something in common. When you go into the record store, you can get away with, “I like everything but country. Fuck that shit.” When you go into the bookstore, you can get away with, “I like everything but poetry. Fuck that shit.”

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Celebrating the Woman Who Would Become Maya Angelou, on her Birthday

April 3rd, 2020

Image via mayaangelou.com Marguerite Johnson is not a name we all know and recognize. The woman behind the legacy of a more familiar name, she was so much more than a poet and writer. She lived a life of passion and love. She spread lessons learned through survival and kindness. She became a matriarch of inspiration and hope.

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Ask Nick: Publishing 201: Why Are Small Presses Almost Always So Awful?

April 2nd, 2020

Hello, and welcome back to Publishing 201—an occasional column in which I'll answer your questions about writing and publishing, so long as they haven't been asked and answered a million times already. There is plenty of 101-level advice out there, and thousands of writers who can repeat it, but very little has been written for writers further along in their careers or aesthetic development. If you have a 201-level question you'd like me to answer, reach out!

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5 Classic Books to Re-Visit for International Children’s Book Day

April 2nd, 2020

Remember the days that you spent as a kid holed up in your room, reading the hours away? You were probably ignorant of the outside world’s goings-on, since you were too busy traveling to colorful, impossibly creative universes beyond the limits of reality — all via great children’s books.

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Most Mischievous Pranksters in Literature

April 1st, 2020

Usually as March rolls into April, you’re a little more careful about anything you may see or hear, especially on the internet, for fear of falling prey to a practical joke. As harmless as pranks played on friends and families can be, they can prove irksome, as can the never-ending effort to one-up their perpetrators. 

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"Star Trek: Picard" is Having Too Much Fun

March 31st, 2020

Jean-Luc Picard has always been my captain. He was my TV dad, teaching me more about the difference between right and wrong than eighteen years of church. When faced with a moral quandary, I ask myself “What would JL do?” I have watched just about every minute of Star Trek that exists, and loved them all in their own special ways, but it was Picard that turned me from a casual rerun viewer into the hardcore fan I am today. So Star Trek: Picard promised to be the show I’d been asking Santa Clause for every Christmas the last twenty-six years.

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