The Night of One Hundred Thieves first draft? Check! Determine if it is a novella or a novel? Plllt. First things first. What the heck is a novella? Is it Italian? Does it have a moral or a “satirical bent?” Is it produced in parts? The answer to all of these internet jabs at the…
Sitting in my most recent writers’ club meeting, my mind wandered to the issue of the modern reader and how a writer should and would respond. Most specifically, I was thinking about the attention span and the action requirements of the modern reader. Personally, I can relate. I have adult ADHD and even though I…
I pay close attention to first lines. One of my writer aspirations is to have such a great first line that they’ll be begging me to use it in the “First Lines” section of Poets & Writers. I read that section, every month, scrutinizing the novel lines. Then whenever I start a new book, I…
Plays 5 (or Plays FIve), a compilation of five of Tom Stoppard plays, published by faber and faber in 1999. Also, Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon, by Tom Stoppard, from Grove Press, published first in 1966 and with an introduction in 2005. Note that I have recently reviewed Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Stoppard’s most…
Harry Potter book series, by J. K. Rowling and published by Bloomsbury and Scholastic Inc, 1997-2007 (seven books). As many times as I have mentioned Harry Potter or J. K. Rowling, I have not officially done a review of the book series. So in honor of October, Halloween, and our recent trip to The Wizarding…
Before I get to my movie and TV reviews, I will share a few thoughts on e-books. When it comes to my Kindle, I go kicking and screaming. I really still like the actual book (as much as I still enjoy opening up a canister of new film and giving it a whiff and keep…
We are living in the era of the villain. I mean, first there was Lolita, and now there is Dexter. And how many books, movies, TV shows, plays (etc.) which would otherwise be pretty classical in scope, these days, have a very sympathetic take on the villain? Suddenly, vampires are boyfriends and serial killers are…
I have been assailed lately by books in the present tense, which I am assured is not only my experience. (It might be a trend, if not just a thing that lots of blossoming authors do before they learn better.) At first, I wasn’t sure what it was about these encounters that was really disturbing…
“Hamlet,” or “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” William Shakespeare, app. 1600. Read, not the version shown here, but from my leather-bound William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, published by Gramercy Books in 1975. Bonus reviews of four Hamlet movies and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. William Shakespeare (assuming that was his name…
I have been reading an article in Poets & Writers about current writers (and book sellers) in Egypt. (Yes, I am a couple months behind on my trade reading.) With the continuing upheaval (think Arab Spring and then lots more) in the country, it is precarious to be a writer or to be selling modern…
Basically, I was away from my life and from my work from mid-June to mid-August. That means that July was not a month for a lot of progress on books or book sales, and yet there were some things happening. I had one guest appearance on a blog while I was away and, by the…
“A Doll’s House,” by Henrik Ibsen (1879), read from Oxford World’s Classics Henrik Ibsen: Four Major Plays (1981), transl. by James McFarlane and Jens Arup. Also, “Ghosts” (1881), “Hedda Gabler” (1890), and “The Master Builder” (1892). I can’t say that I enjoyed these plays too much. Ibsen and I diverge too much in our basic…
Fortress of Solitude, by Jonathan Lethem, the National Bestseller published in 2003 by Vintage Books. In 2003, I was no longer in college, nor was I writing full time yet. In fact, I was working as a receptionist at an inner city junior high, crying on my drive home, recuperating in the evenings listening to…
Le Pere Goriot, also known as Old Man Goriot, Old Goriot, or Father Goriot, written by Honore de Balzac within his Human Comedy series, and read in the new 2011 translation by Penguin Classics. Originally published in 1834-1835 (serialized). Well, this was the first book in my reading series that was just a quiet, non-difficult…
I think the first thing I need to define here is my idea of art. Now, there are whole books and classes and even lives dedicated to this topic, as well as ever-shifting popular and specialist opinions. I know. (I took a couple classes in college on aesthetics, as well as art appreciation, and the…
With Kevin now graduated from nursing school, this has been a big month for us and the entertainment industry and catching up. We have spent a majority of our May evenings tucking the kids in and then slumping onto the couch to watch our newest favorite thing. We haven’t had a life like this in…
Time for an April synopsis! Before we get all entertainment here, let’s acknowledge that this was the month I received my first paycheck as a novelist and entrepreneur of Owl and Zebra Press. Createspace, Kindle, and Smashwords (which, between the three, distribute to all my other sales venues) take one, two, or even three months…
I have not been a fantasy fan for very long. It took a daughter who was very into The Chronicles of Narnia and then Harry Potter to change my averting, literary ways. And then I was handed a copy of The Once and Future King. Oh! Where have you been all my life, T. H.…
Lately I have heard and re-heard some very old writerly advice. It is this: Read. In other words, if you want to be a good writer, you need to read, and read a lot. Now, I have a little bit of a superstition of sorts about this. Actually, I guess it’s not really a superstition,…
About a week ago, my four-year-old son, Eamon, and I were having a conversation about heroes. He did not understand that there is a difference between superheroes and heroes, and began the conversation by stating that there are no real heroes. So I enumerated for him the types of heroes that a four-year-old would understand.…
the starving artist 