It’s Friday, so let’s keep things light. Building on the post for Shakespeare’s birthday from two weeks ago, it’s worth remembering that writers, the folks who are supposed to be lovers of language will go ahead and just invent words. Without a permit! Why it’s outrageous! Possibly treaso- oh, who am I kidding? I run an outfit called Jabberwocky Audio Theater for crying out loud. I love nonce words. I’ll let Dr. Erica Brozovsky take…
Amid the many pop culture phenomena Gen Xers were exposed to, one of the most pleasant for me were the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Appearing right at the end of the 70s and absolutely exploding in the 80s, not all the entries in the series were created equally, a fact that we young readers were well aware of as we recommended particular books over others. There were also certain endings that felt arbitrary or…
The last time I checked, scholars were not absolutely certain about Shakespeare’s birthday, though April 23rd is a contender. They are, however, quite certain of his death day, which is… also April 23rd. That seems fitting for Shakespeare in a thematic symmetry kind of way. Okay, I see a few John Webster fans raising their hand at the mention of Death, but stay with me and the Bard for a moment here. I’ve been a…
Coming off my blogiversary post on Saturday, I was catching up on some TED/TEDx videos and one of them made me think of the originality post I talked about re-visiting within the next year. The speaker not only touches on fantasy tropes being tropes and therefore not original, but also about the not unheard of concept that fantasy helps understand reality. In fact, it’s not just fantasy, there’s science fiction as well. And I see…
Anyone who’s gone through a family member’s belongings after they have passed knows the many emotions it may stir. And then, for many of us, there’s all the stuff we’ve accumulated… which would not be a nice to leave someone to go through. But then what do you do with all the stuff? A longform article about this would be nice. A longform article by a novelist used to elegantly weaving sometimes conflicting, sometimes ephemeral…
My now annual post about the Public Domain continues to a noticeable amount of traffic and I continue to find additional resources post-January 1st, so here’s two more. First is a video from energetic book-lover Jenny Fern whose 16-minute video about books entering the public domain. She is candid about not knowing some of the authors or characters at all, so don’t be hatin’ on someone who doesn’t know about Miss Marple, and enjoy this…
“Supercuts” are always fun and supercuts of a past year’s films are a fine tradition to uphold. For over a decade, I’m enjoyed the meticulously crafted montages by David Ehrlich, a film critic and, as quickly becomes apparent: wholly unrepentant cinemaniac. His tastes and judgment on films are as varied as they are unexpected, paired beautifully with a veritable mixtape of a soundtrack that grabs you as much as it startles you. Basically, one minute…
It probably doesn’t surprise readers, given my posts during Banned Books Week, that I like libraries and bookstores. And while I favor independent and used bookstores when I can (and usually get my books online from Bookshop.org), I have visited various Barnes & Noble stores on several occasions in recent memory. So I was interested to learn that they’re doing well, even in this age of “is anybody reading?” On one level, I am amazed…
Statistically speaking, some of you made some new year’s resolutions regarding writing, but what if you’re finding that difficult? Dennis Palumbo is a screenwriter-turned-therapist I’ve referenced before on this blog (see this one about getting notes on your script and this interview with veteran screenwriter Ken Levine). Well, there’s three more articles I can share, ones he wrote for the Psychiatric Times last fall — and ones that might help writers figure out their author…