Storytellersunplugged

by David Niall Wilson You try and you try and you just can't escape that old "art" vs. ART thing. There are a great number of forms of artistic expression. Some have been grouped into "The Fine Arts" – and among these, standing tall, is Literature. The problem is that every one of those different disciplines in the Fine Arts has its brethren in the upper, middle and lower classes, and even in the sewers and junkyards. Perception is among ... Read More

The people attended the funeral, and toasted sombre flutes, when the King of Bad Days choked to death on a Calamity Fruit. As everyone knows, the calamity fruit grows, on the Tortured Wallow Tree, in the Orchards of Misery. They are the succulent source of all ill fortune, when chewed and spat into a magical spittoon. The old King was popular, giving a bad day once a moon, or if a person was naughty, then maybe two. But the new King, ... Read More

Language and communication comes in many shapes and forms. It is entirely possible to use the written word as a laser pointer, not the ultimate destination – and allow the thing you are writing ABOUT, or pointing AT, to carry the story forward rather than scintillating verbal pyrotechnics by themselves. A case in point is the language of flowers – because they mean different things to different people, cultural norms attach different contexts (or none at all) to individual kinds of flowers, ... Read More

I’m sure more than a few of you have seen THE DARK KNIGHT by now. I haven’t, but then when have I ever kept up with current events? (Catch me later tonight (the 27th) as I watch LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD on Starz. But don’t spoil it for me, I don’t want to know if McClane gets the bad guy at the end). I’m always surprised by the amount of people that don’t seem to know that ... Read More

The most important lesson I learned while working in a bookstore was taught to me by smut-loving nuns. In so many words, they taught me that people enjoy reading what they enjoy, and that trying to “elevate” them to your particular taste was a foolhardy and condescending endeavor. The second most important lesson I learned had to do with betting against a sure thing, particularly where a waiter at a downtown bar and a lovely undergrad majoring in massage therapy are involved, but ... Read More

by Stan Ridgley I wonder at the source of inspiration. And in this, I am not unlike every other person who presumes to compress a week's worth of intellectual power into a scant 10 paragraphs. Or a year's labor on a novel into three quick nights' reading. Why sometimes, the words tumble out faster than my keyboard can catch them, while at others, the yawning silence and my stiff aching fingers combine for a stunningly inactive interlude. Inactivity of the immediately forgettable sort. But the ... Read More

I was at some author event the other night and doing the chat thing with people at the pre-dinner cocktail party and found myself in conversation with an aspiring author who had just finished a book, and naturally I asked, “What’s your book about?” And she said – “Oh, I can’t really describe it in a few sentences– there’s just so much going on in it.” WRONG ANSWER. The time to know what your book is about is before you start it, and you damn ... Read More

A few of you reading this may have expected to see an entirely different essay from me this month, one I wrote in an angry and frustrated state of mind a few weeks ago. I fully intended to post it, and to hell with any possible negative consequences. At that point I figured I had nothing to loose anyway. When the ego is wounded, nothing else seems important. Probably I don’t have anything to loose. I doubt that there would have been any ... Read More

By Richard Steinberg “Oh is this a blessing or is it a curse? Does it get any better? Can it get any worse? Will it go on forever or is it over tonight? Does it come with the darkness? Does it bring out the light? Is it richer than diamonds, or just a little cheaper than spit? I don't know what it is, but it just won't quit,” Jim Steinman/Meat Loaf Yes. Like it or not, I’m back. I ... Read More

My editors almost never call. Most of them, I've never met. Often our only contact is via e-mail and Federal Express. It can go on that way for years, and has. As long as everything's fine, there's no need to talk. I land an assignment for a novel, I'm thrilled. I turn it in on time and it rocks, the editor's even happier. And it's all done in the most efficient way possible for busy people racing around the dawn of the 21st ... Read More