The Resurrection of Sylvia Plath's "Ariel"

The Resurrection of Sylvia Plath's "Ariel"

Header image by Leza Cantoral

Ariel is a notorious poetry collection that is often interpreted as one long suicide note, a sort of burn book of all those in Sylvia Plath’s life who did not know how to love her and did her wrong. As a confessional poet, her burns go inward as well as outward. She takes painstaking inventory of her own shortcomings, inviting the reader into her dissociative mind, her dark obsessive thoughts, her nightmares, her petty jealousies, her endless yearnings for a deeper kind of experience.

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Listen Up: 9 Audiobook Hacks

Listen Up: 9 Audiobook Hacks


Headphone image via Sound On

I might’ve been a few years late to the audiobook craze, but I got there, and now that I'm here, I’m staying.

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Celebrate Teen Literature Day with These Five YA Authors

Celebrate Teen Literature Day with These Five YA Authors

As a writer and voracious reader of young adult literature, I find lit for teens to be incredibly important. Not for me (though I do find it entertaining and I love it to death); I think the reason lit for teens is so important is in the name — it’s for teens.

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The Gabino Iglesias Online MFA: First Semester

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The Gabino Iglesias Online MFA: First Semester

Original image by mentatdgt

I got tired of seeing writers take classes they don't need, so I'm opening an MFA program. It will be online because nothing's worse than a workshop where you have to look at the faces criticizing your work... especially when theirs is atrocious. In any case, I know grammar, syntax, and worldbuilding, to name a few, are elements that writers need to learn about, but I think you can get really good at all those by writing and reading like your life depended on it.

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10 Horror Bookstagrammers You Should Be Following

10 Horror Bookstagrammers You Should Be Following

If you are not familiar with the wonderful world of #bookstagram on the Instagram app, let me get you caught up as quickly as I can. There are readers all over the world who have dedicated their Instagram account to posting photos of the books in their collection. Much of what you’ll find is bright, sunny book worms who love contemporary literature, mainstream or traditionally published books and Young Adult fiction.

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Comics vs. Television: "Locke & Key" — Skip The Show, Read The Comics

Comics vs. Television: "Locke & Key" — Skip The Show, Read The Comics

I’m not surprising the world by saying, “The book is better.”

I know this is not mind-blowing news, but in this case it’s news you need to hear. Not because the series of comics by Joe Hill is better, but because the comics are MUCH better. And because so many plot points carried over in the show, you really can’t watch the show first, then read the book. If you watch the show, you’ll ruin the much better experience of the book.

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Why Genre Writers Should Read Poetry

Why Genre Writers Should Read Poetry

Original header images via Sofia Garza & Andrea Piacquadio

Before Rian Johnson became a symbol of the last decade’s nerd cultural proxy war, he made a great neo-noir-YA film called Brick. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a loner who still knows all the highs school cliques and uses them to help find his lost girlfriend. I relate to the character in how I interact and intersect with all the macro and micro literary scenes.

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So, Was Shakespeare An Anti-Semite Or Not?

So, Was Shakespeare An Anti-Semite Or Not?

image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

This month, Shakespeare turns 456 years old (the exact date of his birth is unknown). Anytime I hear the Bard's name, I almost always think of this English professor I had in college whose speciality was Shakespeare, and who taught a class devoted exclusively to the study of his plays. 

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Is Blending Genres the Worst Idea You've Ever Had?

Is Blending Genres the Worst Idea You've Ever Had?

Original image via Aa Dil

There are a lot of ways to get cross-genre stories wrong. If you are well read in multiple genres, you are in good shape. Knowing one genre well and another just a little might work, too, but ultimately knowledge reigns supreme. You need a firm grasp on the rules of each genre before you break them and mix them together in your literary blender. If you are not familiar with the various genres you’re blending, you are playing a risky game.

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A Poetry FAQ for Regular Folks

A Poetry FAQ for Regular Folks

Header image by Brad Neathery via Unsplash

Poetry and country music have something in common.

When you go into the record store, you can get away with, “I like everything but country. Fuck that shit.”

When you go into the bookstore, you can get away with, “I like everything but poetry. Fuck that shit.”

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