Storytellersunplugged

by Brian Hodge Get the podcast - or Subscrbe in iTunes This past January 15th, I was glued to the computer screen more than usual. It’s an annual rite. Every mid-January, Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs takes the stage at the Macworld Expo and yanks the sheets off all the goodies the rest of us have been speculating about since last Arbor Day. Yep … I’m not just a Mac geek. I’m one of those Mac geeks. No home runs this year, but you ... Read More

By Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie TemJanet is buried hip deep in a deadline that she's having trouble with thanks to the wonders of doctors deciding to "adjust" medication levels that were working. So, she asked her long-time friends Melanie and Steve Tem to fill in this month. In March, Wizards of the Coast Discoveries will be releasing the novel-length reimagining of their multi-award-winning novella "The Man On The Ceiling." Publisher's Weekly has already praised as "This visceral, psychological view of ... Read More

By Richard Steinberg This month's essay is dedicated with love and gratitude to Sgt. Bryan J. Tutten, 33, of St. Augustine, Fla., who died Dec. 25 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his position.  He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, and also, to: Pfc. Brian L. Gorham, 21, of Woodburn, Ky., who died Dec. 31  of wounds suffered in Afghanistan when his vehicle encountered an improvised ... Read More

My first word was “Boo!” and I’ve loved surprises ever since.  I want to discover things.  Refine that, I want to discover hidden things, things that have meaning.  I want there to be more than five senses can take in.  Five senses are standard issue.  Most critters with fin, skin, fur or feathers have them, often with a superior specialty.  Jack rabbits out-hear me.  Eagles out-see me.  I’m tied with the koala bear.  But word has it that heart, mind and soul ... Read More

By Richard Steinberg “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself,” Ralph Waldo Emerson Our Bear In Mind is deep within the world right now, creating light and words.  And as the world is deeply in need of both light and words, it’s a pleasure to fill in for her today.  I’ll see you again on the 22nd. Abraham Pascal was a writer. True, he was never published.  He lived his ... Read More

Have you ever noticed that the outcomes to life’s most successful quests can’t really be foreseen in detail?  If it’s an initiative that your heart is truly into, then whatever concept you have of success ahead of time, the outcome ends up exceeding it.  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”  But starting out all you can see are the complexities and the problems up front.  The solutions build stroke by stroke like a painting taking on shape and color.  In the ... Read More

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. --T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965) Ah, sometimes the burning bush talks, and instead of an offer for male enhancement drugs by email, you are given the chance to, once again, don the editorial chapeau and... Tally ho! I am now the editor of DOORWAYS, and though publisher Brian Yount has dubbed me Chief Editor or Editor-in-Chief, I do not have or want control of artistic design, in that I can barely perceive ... Read More

In 2000, I was just getting underway as a writer. I was a member of an online critique group and starting to gain enough confidence to submit my short fiction. I heard that an online magazine called The Harrow was having a Halloween contest with $50 and publication as prizes. A few days later, I saw an episode of 60 Minutes or 20/20 when I saw a segment about an obsessive compulsive disorder called "harming obsession." While I watched, all I could ... Read More

I can't afford to look in the mirror. Not the one that looks back anyway. Like Cyrano de Bergerac, I try to hang my adornments on my soul. That way there is no visible evidence to confirm or refute that I have any adornments. I guess breaking even in life is starting to look good to me. For better or worse, it's increasingly difficult for me to motivate myself toward the collective thinking of society. That isn't a lack of respect, but ... Read More

Several of my colleagues have written on the specifics of teaching, and I thought I’d address the soul-searching panic that can befall anyone who suddenly finds themselves called upon to give a speech, teach, or advise. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a single person asking you for advice or a trumped-up forum in which the local library has decided you should entertain the patrons at their monthly soiree, the pitfalls are the same. It can come as a shock when you ... Read More