Columns

10 Authors Who Should Run for President

April 8th, 2019

Between reality show stars, wrestlers, and actors, it's obvious that anyone can run for office. Need some reminders? Al Franken, Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Springer, and Sonny Bono have all been in politics. I think it's time we get some writers in the mix. Hell, I think it's time we get some writers to run this country. Here is my list of nominees, in no particular order.

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A Song Of Samwise

April 5th, 2019

Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We’re in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards.  – Samwise Gamgee, The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

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10 Reasons Why Bookstagrammers are Awesome

April 3rd, 2019

Photo by Emily Rudolph Two weeks ago I had a chance to catch up with Jeremy Robert Johnson over the phone. Besides being one of my favorite humans, Jeremy is also a mentor whose words I pay attention to. At one point our conversation turned to things we had recently learned, and we ended up talking about how amazing bookstagrammers are and how crucial they can be for a writer's career. I thought about that for days after our conversation and even mentioned it to my MFA students.

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6 Reasons We Should Celebrate Hans Christian Andersen — 214 Years After His Birth

April 2nd, 2019

For a man who wrote some of the most lasting stories in history, Hans Christian Andersen is never venerated like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, or Ernest Hemingway. Indeed, his fairy tales precede him and Andersen himself is much shrouded in mystery.

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A List of Books I Recommended to Autumn Christian for "Girl Like a Bomb"

April 1st, 2019

I like to be a hands-on editor. Playing in bands, when I share songs with other musicians, I want them to understand where I'm coming from and what influences me. I tell them to check out certain bands to inspire them and help them build off what I'm trying to.

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April Showers Bring May Manuscripts

April 1st, 2019

The shower is one of humanity’s greatest inventions. Okay, it’s not really an invention. We just ripped off nature’s idea—rain—but the shower is generally warmer, and it’s easier (legally) to be naked in the shower than it is to stand at the end of the driveway naked while it rains. Take my word on this one. The shower is pretty good for cleaning the body, but it’s got a magical, second function. It’s the place where a lot of us get good ideas.

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Improve Your Stories By Eliminating Agendas

March 29th, 2019

Recently, a student of mine handed in a story that was far and away better than anything he’d written since joining the MFA Program here at Arcadia University. In itself, this is not uncommon. Students have writing epiphanies all the time, and I’m always happy to see them. When I asked this student what he’d done differently for this story, he told me something I’ve never heard before from a pupil: he said this was the first story that he didn’t approach with an agenda.

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The Literary Influences Behind Jordan Peele's "Us"

March 28th, 2019

SPOILERS ABOUND BELOW

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The World of Yuri Herrera

March 28th, 2019

"Yuri Herrera must be a thousand years old. He must have traveled to hell, and heaven, and back again. He must have once been a girl, an animal, a rock, a boy, and a woman. Nothing else explains the vastness of his understanding."

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Library Love: Seed Libraries

March 27th, 2019

Header via Librarians, always looking to push the envelope. Makerspaces, Go clubs, Drag Queen Story Hour, and now... seed libraries. What newfangled thing will they come up with next? If you were like me last season and didn't think about putting in food plants until May when it was already freaking hot, the time to get smart is now!

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