Columns

Why The F*ck Aren’t You Reading Matt Kindt?

September 25th, 2014

image courtesy firstsecondbooks.com Why The F*ck Aren't You Reading? is a feature where the columnist spotlights a writer who has a dedicated following and is well known within the writing community, but hasn't achieved the elephant-in-the-room style success of a Stephen King or Gillian Flynn—But they deserve to, dammit! Hopefully the column will help gain the author featured a few more well-deserved readers.

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So You Want to Write a Book, Part 1: Ready, Set, GO!

September 25th, 2014

photo by Jacson Querubin via Flickr Last month, in the

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5 Things Literary Writers Can Learn from Sci-Fi Writers

September 24th, 2014

Say you're a literary writer. You've worked with famous types, attended plenty of conferences, maybe you even have an MFA. Chances are, there are a few things you don't know that writers of sci-fi (and speculative fiction in general) know that you don't.

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Screenwriting: The Emotional Spine

September 22nd, 2014

Film is an emotional medium. Reading a book puts you inside the protagonist’s head, but watching a movie plants you firmly in her shoes. The immersive audio-visual experience of a darkened theater, especially the score swelling through surround sound, is conducive to feeling, not thinking. We read a film not so much by listening to dialogue, but by watching emotions flicker across characters’ faces. We react physically to scares by jumping in our seats, and a dynamic chase sequence gets our pulse racing along with the protagonist’s.

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The Joy of Horror Novelizations

September 22nd, 2014

There is an alternate universe where the killings in Halloween are the result of a druidic curse cast by the god Muck Olla, and where E.T. the Extra-terrestrial has the hots for Elliot’s mother. This is a universe where movie novelizations are king.

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Every Stephen King Novel Summarized in 140 Characters or Less

September 19th, 2014

Stephen King introduced me to horror. He got me addicted to reading. I try to devour anything he writes, and most of the time, I am not left disappointed. He is my favorite writer, so obviously I felt compelled to summarize every one of his books using the character limits of Twitter. And before you say anything, don’t worry: Steve and I were recently published together in the same anthology, so now we’re BFFs.

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The Self-Taught MFA: Novel Idea or Fairy Tale?

September 19th, 2014

Quick! Look out the window. On early autumn mornings, they fill the streets: writers of all types and stripes, skipping down the road to the first day of their MFA. Their brand-new book bags are stuffed with the first drafts these programs promise to lovingly and expertly critique. In their hands they clutch shiny red apples—a love offering for the widely published authors-turned-instructors, who will guide them to similar success.

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Prose & Conversation: 'Jesus' Son' by Denis Johnson

September 18th, 2014

Usually, when Richard and I sit down to talk books for Prose & Conversation, it's early-ish in the day. This time, for Denis Johnson's short story collection, Jesus' Son, it was late at night, and for two writers with families and kids and jobs, that meant it was time for our bleakest, most candid, and sometimes silliest, conversation yet. Read on for thoughts on death and dying, the suddenness with which they can occur, and our take on one of the most lyrical, beautifully dark books we've yet read.

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Product Review: Fountain

September 18th, 2014

images courtesy fountain.io Over a year ago, I wrote a roundup of mobile screenwriting apps that, among other things, touched upon the Fountain formatting rules as a viable alternative to dedicated screenplay software.

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It's Made of SCIENCE: Cloning

September 17th, 2014

I took a little summer vacation from IMOS to focus on, among other things, getting comfortable in my new community manager shoes. It took some time to get the fit right, but they're pretty comfortable, and I'm finally getting used to the squeaking.

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