Columns

5 Business Savvy Books Every Author Should Read

July 8th, 2019

Does it irk you that almost every article boasting “must-read” books for writers lists the same five titles—On Writing, Bird by Bird, The Elements of Style, Daily Rituals, and Ernest Hemingway on Writing? Don’t get me wrong. Those are outstanding books, and the best way to master any skill is to model experts in your field. However, none of these works cover the business side of being a writer, which is an essential part of the job, especially if you’re self-publishing.

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A Brief History Of Folk Horror In Literature

July 3rd, 2019

Note: This column isn't meant to be an exhaustive history of folk horror, but rather a broad overview of the subgenre.

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3 Times I Pirated Books And How I Feel About It

July 3rd, 2019

Let's you and me have a real discussion about book piracy. Let me just turn my chair around backwards, turn my hat backwards, and depending how many Kriss Kross albums I’ve been listening to, turn my pants backwards. Book piracy is real, and it’s a problem. Hardcore piracy enthusiasts are already loading their chambers with arguments about the benefits of piracy, but hold up a second. Because I’m not here to talk about how awful you are. I'm here to talk about how awful I am, which we can all get behind.

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So You Want to Write Women

July 2nd, 2019

Vaginas, breasts, and uteri; Oh my! Women are everywhere. It’s almost as if they make up half of the population or more. You know what else? Women are writing books and scrutinizing the way they are portrayed in movies, on television, and in music. We can blame the education system for this. Or maybe, just maybe there’s something to this perspective. Everyone loves a good heroine, or better, an evil woman who isn’t afraid to get her bitch on ─ but what is it about females that makes them so hard to get right?

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10 Tips to Slaughter Insecurity

July 1st, 2019

From a simple "I can't do it" to writer's block to elaborate excuses why you can't tackle the project at hand to stuff like imposter's syndrome— writers are some of the most insecure people out there. I'm one of them, so please don't think for a second I'm judging you or saying insecurity makes you weak. No, I'm here to try to help. I hate insecurity, so I've developed ways of coping with my own. I'll share them here in hopes they help you slaughter those nasty little self-doubting demons.

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Storyville: Living Vicariously Through Our Fiction

June 27th, 2019

As authors, we are required to make up stories and entertain our audience. Why do people read? Why do we write? I think people read for a wide range of reasons, but one of them is to escape—to get away from their boring lives, their difficult lives, lives that are filled with hard work, suffering, and repetition. As authors, we seek out a lot of the same things. So let’s talk about that.

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Is It Really Such A Bad Thing To Give The Audience What They Want?

June 26th, 2019

Lots of spoilers for numerous properties ahead... I know many of you are sick of hearing about it at this point, so I promise not to talk about Game of Thrones for very long, but remember when the fandom was more or less in a good place after the Battle of Winterfell in the season 8 episode "The Long Night"? Most everyone celebrated Arya's swooping in from the dark and slaying the Night King, effectively doing what Jon Snow only dreamt of doing for several seasons, as if it was nothing more than swatting a fly.

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The 3 Worst Duties I Performed As A Librarian

June 25th, 2019

This week is my last week as a librarian. After fifteen years working in the same building, I’m moving onto pastures. The usual phrase is “greener” pastures, but I’m not sure yet. Different pastures, for sure. But there’s some parts of my job that I’ll miss. For all the good that comes with change, I liked writing “librarian” in the Occupation field of my tax return every year. When someone cut my hair and asked, “So, what do you do?” I liked my answer.

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5 Horrifying Books Outside The Horror Genre

June 24th, 2019

Someone once told me, a monster is a god without followers, and I think about that often, because it means what we find horrifying is about perspective. A lot of popcorn thrillers would be horror movies if we showed people going into shock and bleeding out after being shot, people's bones breaking or flying out the windshield when they got hit in a car chase, or how people's lives were destroyed after the heroes blew up buildings. Zoom into a beautiful body, and you'll find grotesque processes going on inside the invisible dark underneath the skin.

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Fuck Your Panel on Diversity, What We Need are Diverse Panels

June 21st, 2019

Photo by Magda Ehlers Listen, we needed panels about diversity. We needed them because literature was stuck in the past and, to be honest, it was racist. We needed them because people of color, LGBTQIA folks, and women weren't being invited to speak at conferences. We needed them because diverse voices and experiences were required to expand literature's horizon and help readers feel represented. The list of reasons goes on and on.

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