Where Crime, Horror, and Science Fiction Meet – Discussing new discoveries, old mysteries, creepy tales, and dark storytelling
There are a million ways to establish a setting. The easiest and most straightforward is to describe the setting in narration — just lay out how things look. But there’s more to a setting than physical surroundings and sometimes plain old description just doesn’t cut it. Every place has its own rhythm, its own people.…
Dead Man’s Cell Phone Production Poster (Designed by: Linda Nichols) Sarah Ruhl is the second most performed playwright in the United States — second only to the Bard his own self. This is the last weekend that it will be performed in Colorado Springs at the Springs Ensemble Theatre. In other words: this is the…
I’m trying to read Shakespeare’s works in the (generally) agreed upon order in which they were written. That means there’s a lot of histories up front. Right now, I’ve finished the Henry VI trilogy and am moving on to Richard III. And, really, the only thing clear to me is Shakespeare’s historical presentations are quite questionable.…
This week’s Saturday pages is all about figurative language and taking leaps. I’m also going to offer you different levels to try your hand at – depending on whether you a lighter writing exercise or if you’re game for some heavier lifting. The most important thing about today’s exercise is that you shut up your…
Read a bit of Neil Gaiman and you’ll quickly realize that he has flexible ideas of reality. Yeah, I know his stock in trade is fantasy. I’m not talking about that. No, what I’m talking about is Gaiman’s willingness to take leaps, and his confidence that you’ll leap with him. A couple of years ago,…
“Gravitas” is one of my husband’s million dollar words when he’s offering a critique. It’s a tricky word to digest when it’s thrown at you like: “This needs more gravitas.” He’s much more eloquent but, I mean, what can you do with that? Generally I take it to mean that the stakes aren’t sufficiently high…
Agatha Christie is my third mentor for this year, and she’s also the third British writer who published actively in the ’20s and ’30s. Woolf, Wodehouse, and Christie could, very conceivably, have hung out and had some beers together. They were all about the same age and wrote throughout both World Wars. What’s so interesting…
Read more Product-of-Your-Time Rhetoric – Is Awareness the Answer?
Other Worlds, and This 