Columns

8 Books for 8 Nights of Hanukkah

December 20th, 2019

Are you looking for stories about Hanukkah to teach little ones about the history of the holiday? Or maybe you want to provide young readers with books that reflect the customs and traditions their family enjoys during the month of December? Well, look no further, because this list delivers on both fronts with eight books to read during the eight nights of Hanukkah.

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10 Wintery Yule Books for the Solstice

December 19th, 2019

The Winter Solstice has come early for a lot of people in the Midwest and on the East Coast this year. Glittering blankets of white already coat plenty of lawns. The cold has struck many bones. Whether you enjoy catching snowflakes on your tongue or sipping hot cider under a blanket, there is something for everyone to enjoy about this time of year. For Pagans and less traditionally religious people, this is also a great time to share books with loved ones. People are spending more time indoors. Imaginations are running wild. A bit of magic lingers in the air.

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'The Handmaid's Tale': Sexy Costumes, Tasteless Photos, and the Limits of Fandom

December 18th, 2019

In the last little bit I’ve seen some weird Handmaid’s Tale stories. They got me thinking about fandom, fiction, and...damn, I can’t think of another F-word. We’ll come back to that. Let’s look at these stories one at a time.

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LitReactor Staff Picks: The Best Books of 2019 - Part III

December 17th, 2019

Another year has come and gone. You know what that means, don't you? Time for a bunch of strangers to tell you what was good! And why should you care what the LitReactor staff thinks are the best books of the year? Trick question! You shouldn't. But what they have to say might interest you nonetheless, because they are good-looking and knowledgeable and they read like the wind. So for those who care, we submit for your approval/derision some of LitReactor's favorite reads of 2019 (part 3).

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Six Things to Know Going Into Netflix's Adaptation of "The Witcher"

December 17th, 2019

In 1993, Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski published The Last Wish, the first installment of a then-unknown fantasy series, The Witcher. The final book, Season of Storms, came out twenty years later in 2013 — and in the interim, a cult following grew not only in Eastern Europe, but internationally.

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Gift Guide: The Tools, Tricks, and Secret Weapons of Your Favorite Authors

December 16th, 2019

Everybody is busting out their gift lists, and at LitReactor, we've made a firm decision that if all the other web sites were to jump off a cliff, yes, we would too. Because if there's a cliff to jump off, we'll show everyone else how to do it right. 

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LitReactor Staff Picks: The Best Books of 2019 - Part II

December 13th, 2019

Another year has come and gone. You know what that means, don't you? Time for a bunch of strangers to tell you what was good! And why should you care what the LitReactor staff thinks are the best books of the year? Trick question! You shouldn't. But what they have to say might interest you nonetheless, because they are good-looking and knowledgeable and they read like the wind. So for those who care, we submit for your approval/derision some of LitReactor's favorite reads of 2019 (part 2).

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Why Isn't More Poetry Funny?

December 12th, 2019

Can poetry be funny? Most of you are saying, “Of course it can.” And most of you are wrong.

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Why Watch the Watchmen?

December 11th, 2019

Watchmen is one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. I include it in my personal canon of must-reads, and it is among the volumes I still revisit every few years. A postmodern deconstruction of the superhero mythos and a scathing indictment of great man theory, it is more than just a good story well told. It was groundbreaking, commanding a level of academic and critical respect previously unheard of for comic books. Watchmen’s influence on comics as a medium and the superhero genre as a whole has been nothing short of profound.

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10 Pieces of Advice Every Writer Should Ignore

December 10th, 2019

I've heard incredibly dumb and inaccurate things while talking to other writers at work, in the streets, after readings, at conferences, after delivering keynote speeches, and when teaching MFA classes. They usually have to do with writing and how it should be done. I'm a journalist, so I often ask questions, and when someone says something I think is wrong or misinformed, I immediately ask them where they heard it. In my experience, most people who say inaccurate things about writing do so because they learned those things from other writers.

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