Storytellersunplugged

YOU'VE GOT TO READ THIS!   The title of my entry today has been shamelessly stolen from a book called (what else?) YOU'VE GOT TO READ THIS. Edited by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard, it's published by Harper Perennial, and is subtitled CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WRITERS INTRODUCE STORIES THAT HELD THEM IN AWE.  You probably already have a pretty good idea of what the work offers, but Donna Seaman's BOOKLIST review will give you the details:  Writers are passionate readers because literature is an ongoing dialogue. And ... 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

by David Niall Wilson  I find myself in an odd position, at least odd for me. I almost always approach the plotting and creation of a new novel by starting with one element and branching out. For instance, when I wrote "The Mote in Andrea's Eye," it was because Trish asked me "Why have no hurricanes disappeared into The Bermuda Triangle?" When I wrote "Ancient Eyes," I started with the desire to expand on the hill folk that were depicted in the movie ... Read More

Epiphanies are odd things. There I was, mumble thousand miles above the planet, laterally squished in my window seat by a fellow passenger with a well-endowed caboose which kept spilling into my space, staring out of the window, waiting for the flight to end (ladies and gentlemen, I love being in new places, but I loathe the getting there. Scotty, please invent that transporter thing already...) And there below me, a long, long way below, lay mountains and fields and rivers and roads ... Read More

by Gerard Houarner  For the recent World Horror Con in Salt Lake City, Utah, I was placed on two folklore panels. This happened on the con’s first night, back to back, after twenty hours of travel and the usual greetings, reunions, time adjustments and hotel issues that come with these gatherings. Much more con and travel time has passed since, so my brain hasn't been able to quite hang on to every detail. However, I thought that just the idea of this kind ... Read More

Put yourself in their shoes. Would you have survived? Could you hack it under such conditions? Oh, don't pretend you've never thought about it. I mean, how did Dickens pull it off? What about Austen or Bronte? They didn't have laptops for mobility, or word processing for easy editing, or iPods for drowning out the screaming babies and clattering horseshoes, or...Well, for that matter, they didn't have thermostat-controlled work environments or soft reliable lighting. I write at a desk upstairs, separated from my bed ... Read More

By Stan Ridgley               Quite often now – surely far more frequently than in early years when I dwelled in wiseass territory – I count my blessings.             What blessings might those be?             Immersion in a sparkling diversity every working day.  Tickled by the delights of a thousand different worldly combinations of cultures and milieus, served to me daily.             Others have it worse.             I sat passive in a car recently, precious minutes spent precisely as I chose to.  Slumped in the driver’s side, idly tapping ... Read More

                For me, one of the finest moments of writing comes when crashing through the wall.                 Or cracking open a Faberge egg to find what’s inside is far more valuable than what is glittery and sweet on the outside.                 Or . . . after a long spell of grappling with nothingness, of putting down laborious word after laborious phrase . . . finally bursting into the open with passage after passage of stuff that we think is grand and sweeping and ... Read More