I am a writer myself, but I think discussing art with most artists is like discussing the frequency-selective light reflection of microscopic single gyroid structures with butterflies. They have it, but they don’t really understand it.
Of course, the big news in the literary world is the passing of Anne McCaffrey. The best tribute (I have read) to this amazing author is by Juliette Wade, who discusses how McCaffrey brought genre definitions into play with her Dragonriders of Pern series. Also at Wade’s Talk To YoUniverse blog: an excellent piece on how hard choices for your characters require consequences.
Melville House, one of my favorite sources for publishing news, details an intense and disappointing exchange between blogger Jeremy Duns, who outed the plagiarism of Quentin Rowan, and the latest accused plagiarist Lenore Hart. (By the way, considering that her subject is Poe, Lenore Hart must be a pseudonym, yes?)
BEST READ OF THE DAY: Josh Getzler at Hey There’s a Dead Guy gives us a truly remarkable insight into the writing process by showing us how a writer feels when he’s given the opportunity to enjoy his own writing as a reader. There is so much that can be taken from this piece (for writers and readers) that I won’t say more. Go check it out.
My favorite part of fluorescent lighting is that this is a test. Repeat, this is only a test. If it had been an actual emergency, the sound you’re hearing would be followed by news and instructions. This has been a test of the Emergency Broadcast Light Bulb.
Yeah, I know it’s not Saturday, but the wait has been too long for this latest episode of the Banter series.
Banter started as a single piece of flash fiction, a conversation between an Old West sheriff and a stranger who just gunned down seven men in the street of a New Mexico town named, of course, Banter.
It was supposed to be a one-off bit of comedy about the role of witty dialogue in American fiction but, after I published that initial short story, I kept thinking about the town of Banter and the events that might have followed or led up to the gunfight. Other works of Western fiction suggested themselves for allusion or parody and, before I knew it, I had a fistful of ideas for new stories about Banter.
So, with a tip of my hat to Walter Van Tilburg Clark (who wrote The Ox-Bow Incident
This is my impression of 80 percent of what football commentators say [doing a Brian Regan "stupid guy" voice]:
“What make you go forward is good … and what make … what make you go backward, that’s bad.”
I was never that into comic books, but I do remember first reading the word “kismet” in a DC-Marvel crossover story.
Yes, this photo is meant to be self-deprecating. Thank you.
I know you guys (the writers … guys and gals, technically) love yourselves some good query advice. So, here’s something I read at Hey There’s A Dead Guy: Benjamin LeRoy‘s “Three Tips for Querying! (Because everybody loves a list).” And, yeah, we do love a list. Also at Dead Guy is an interesting piece about that unfortunate dust-up over FridayReads.
GalleyCat discusses the movement to create a Literature category at YouTube. I’m all for it! And… as if the Quentin Rowan scandal wasn’t bad enough, Melville House reveals yet another case of blatant plagiarism in publishing. Read more »
What do people who don’t believe in luck say instead of “wish me luck”?
“Wish me a favorable series of deterministic events that have already been set in motion by causality outside of our awareness!”
Wow, I spoke too soon. Normally I publish the daily reading around noon, and I should have waited today, too. Lots of cool stuff since then.
Ellie Robins at Melville House talks about a Guardian piece on Melville House‘s Not The Booker Prize party, in which Sam Jordison discusses “whether literary criticism [in broadsheet book reviews] adds anything to our appreciation of books, and whether the limited pools of reviewers and books reviewed skews the picture of what there is to read out there.” Read more »
Accidentally left Raymond Chandler‘s anthology, The Simple Art of Murder
So, hey! Remember yesterday when I pointed you to Juliette Wade‘s discussion of gender in fiction? She specifically talks about Ursula Le Guin‘s The Left Hand Of Darkness. What do you know, a rejection letter for The Left Hand Of Darkness is featured in Flavorwire‘s “Famous Authors’ Harshest Rejection Letters.” If you’ve ever gotten a rejection letter, it’s a fun read! Read more »
After my brief detour through Charles Bukowski‘s Pulp
In science news, Jupiter’s moon Europa is believed to have shallow subsurface lakes that connect to the deeper moon-wide ocean. Hard sci-fi writers … On your mark! Get set!
On the writing front: Read more »
Here’s a little chart for all of the oh-so-cooler-than-thou coolsters out there who like to show their anti-hip hipsterdom and appreciation for traditional literature by displaying their ignorance of its history.
So, you say you prefer “real” books to Kindle and Nook? What people read on Kindle and Nook are real books. You’re talking about codices — singular codex — which, early in the Christian Era, largely replaced the scroll format that had dominated book presentation for thousands of years.
Yes, we often use “book” as a synecdoche for “book in codex form.” But, regardless of format, the book is the words, not the format through which the words are presented. Here are some images to explain the concept: Read more »
I finished Charles Bukowski‘s Pulp
We now know what color moths were way back at the dawn of the Age of Mammals. How? Scientists are some clever motor-jammers, that’s how.
At Melville House, a couple of good stories: Read more »
Stories that are in the submission process will be password protected. Apologies.
If you are eager to read something based on the title, genre, and graphic please email johnnelsonleith at gmail and I may share the password.
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