Have you managed any New Year’s Resolutions, yet? Are any of them writing-related? I, for example, have goals to write my business plan, to read and review more than 40 books, to publish two of my novels, edit another for Owl and Zebra, and win at NaNoWriMo 2014. Which brings up my first point of…
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…
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…
“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…
Sybil, or The Two Nations, by Benjamin Disraeli. First published in 1845. The first thing I need to say about this book is about the particular edition that I read (pictured left), not about the book itself. But very quickly (I’m on the fourth book of my 1000-plus) I have learned another lesson. And here…
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,…
I’m going to jump the gun a little bit on my Christmas books and other entertainment list, since the holiday season is extended enough to allow you to actually check them all out. Here are my recommendations for books, movies and music to get you in the holiday spirit (and avoid further replays of Mariah…
Here is a list of my top twelve favorite books, out of the small fraction of total books in the world that I have actually read. I am an avid reader, but I just don’t have tons of time to sit around and read. Plus, there are plenty of books I have enjoyed, but they…
the starving artist 