10 Things I Learned Editing an Anthology in Three Weeks

10 Things I Learned Editing an Anthology in Three Weeks

I'm always thinking about putting anthologies together. I love them. I want to edit an anthology of body horror stories about parasites. I want to edit an anthology of stories inspired by the photographic work of the great Weegee. I want to edit an anthology of stories inspired by the music of Tom Waits. I want to edit an anthology of stories celebrating the World Weekly News aesthetic. I want to edit an anthology of found footage stories (actually kinda working on making this one happen right now...). Anyway, you get the point.

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Foreign Terror-tories: 8 Translated Tales to Terrify

Foreign Terror-tories: 8 Translated Tales to Terrify

Last year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded the Best Picture Oscar Award to Parasite, the first non-English language film to win that award. Parasite is a Korean thriller/black comedy that teeters on the brink of gothic horror. Just an aside, it's also the last movie my husband and I watched in a movie theater since the COVID-19 global pandemic. I absolutely loved it. I thought the movie was smart, compelling, and suspenseful. The climax blew my mind! 

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The Best of the DC Animated Universe

The Best of the DC Animated Universe

The characters and stories of DC Comics have inspired a lot of animation over the years. Marvel may rule the box office with its big budget sci-fi action comedies, but DC makes the best cartoons. Once Bruce Timm and company produced the timeless classic Batman: The Animated Series, they were given the keys to the toy chest and allowed to run wild. In addition to other iconic series like Superman and Justice League Unlimited, they started pumping out tons of short animated features for home video viewing. Unsurprisingly, most of them feature Batman.

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The Realities of Becoming a Full-Time Writer

The Realities of Becoming a Full-Time Writer

Long-time readers of my previous LitReactor articles (or Twitter account) will recognize me as the guy who often complains about his terrible hotel job. For eight years I was employed as the night auditor for a hotel located somewhere in Central Texas. In my novel, The Nightly Disease, I referred to the hotel simply as The Goddamn Hotel. In reality, I will never reveal its true name, so don’t even ask.

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The Existential Horror of Making an Author Website

The Existential Horror of Making an Author Website


There’s nothing more existential than a writer building a website for themselves. It’s even more challenging than writing a book in a way. Hell, it’s even harder than writing the back copy of a book, because you’re the literal back copy up there on the screen.

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Writers on Writers

Writers on Writers

Whenever a renowned writer turns their quill on the behind scenes of a fellow penpusher, the results are often a mixed bag depending on the motivations of the author. Revenge or jealousy may be the ignoble impetus, or a devotion so deep that the prose dips into an undigestible worship. Here are four examples of writers who wrote it right—A.E. Hotchner, Eileen Simpson, Salman Rushdie, and Martin Amis—and their balanced memoirs that slip us satisfyingly behind the curtain without antipathy or idolatry.

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Politics, Cash Grabs, and Hair: The End of the Trump Parody Book

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Politics, Cash Grabs, and Hair: The End of the Trump Parody Book

If you haven’t sold off your Trump parody book by now, you’re screwed.

It was a fun ride and all, but it’s over.

I know, I know, impeachment, yadda, yadda. Trust me. Once the dude is de-White-House-ed, one of two things happens:

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Dear Edgar Allan Poe

Dear Edgar Allan Poe

Letter image via John-Mark Smith

Dear Edgar Allan Poe,

It’s intimidating writing to you.

Would you believe me if I said I wrote this letter seven times only to throw it away, to rip it into pieces, to hide it under my floorboards and pretend it didn’t exist until I had to dig it out and start all over again?

I fell in love with you when I was twelve.

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Bookshots: "A House at the Bottom of a Lake" by Josh Malerman

Bookshots: "A House at the Bottom of a Lake" by Josh Malerman

Bookshots: Pumping new life into the corpse of the book review


Title:

A House at the Bottom of a Lake

Who wrote it?

Malerman expertly conjures a fairy tale nostalgia of first love, and we follow along, all too willingly, ignoring the warning signs even as the fear takes hold.

Fellow Josh, surname Malerman, author of the smash horror novel, Bird Box.

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Brian Keene: A Look Back on 2020

Brian Keene: A Look Back on 2020

Photo courtesy of the author

Brian Keene is a prolific author of horror, primarily, but has crossed over into many other genres, including dark fantasy, crime drama, and non-fiction. He is probably most well known for his zombie horror and his podcast, THE HORROR SHOW (which he recently retired to focus more on writing).

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