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

During the last few months of pregnancy, usually around the fifth but sometimes as late as the eighth, a woman’s nesting instinct kicks in.  Some primitive switch hidden deep inside the female brain flips, and the most laid-back woman suddenly becomes Robo-maid; cleaning, rearranging, putting away, and throwing out.  Childproofing and smoothing all the rough edges of her environment.  Home becomes not just a place in which to live, eat, sleep, and watch Big Brother, but a place of warmth, safety and ... 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

I’m in a bubble-bursting mood today, but I’m not sure that’s really a bad thing.  Some bubbles need bursting.  Most of these little lumps of coal are meant for the newbies in this crazy business, who need every bit of advice they can get, and who also need a good bubble bursting every now and then to keep them honest.  1. All publicity is not good publicity.  Rampaging across the Internet like a lunatic, making jackass posts on public forums, and starting pissing ... 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

In the summer of 1995 I decided to get serious about something that had, up until that point, been not much more than an occasional hobby, one I took up every now and then to amuse my friends and myself. Every now and then I would write a short story, realize that I was probably the best writer since Stephen King, submit it to a couple of magazines, realize I sucked, then give it up for a while. This time I was serious! ... Read More

By Richard Steinberg This month’s column is dedicated to the sacrifices of Capt. Benjamin D. Tiffner, 31, of West Virginia; 5th Special Forces Group and Staff Sgt. Patrick F. Kutschbach, 25, of Pennsylvania; 10th Special Forces Group. Thank you guys, stand easy. “I've been struggling with this toast for several weeks. Should I strike a melancholy, time passes sort of tone? A humorous, light hearted thing? Maybe stentorian wisdom seasoned with a soupcon of slightly controlled emotion? But instead of such frippery, I decided on ... 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

By Richard Steinberg “Coleridge wasa drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to be a writer - and if so, why?” Bennett Cerf It’s a question I ask myself frequently.  It’s not to be “happy,” whatever that means.  Referring ... 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