Reality Bites: Child Abuse
Any regard for the wellbeing of hypothetical children begins and ends with denying bodily autonomy. Consistently.
Internet Killed the Movie Star
“A movie star is not an artist, he is an art object.” film scholar Richard Schickel Recently people like Quintin Tarantino have bemoaned the death of the "movie star" just as others, some of them actors, agree with the overall sentiment but approach it less mournfully. Many attribute it to…
Truth in Fiction: Cutting Onions
Man, what a weird week. As I said on social media, I'm torn between the editing I need to do, and the writing I want to do about recent events and last year's Last Night in SoHo, which I finally got around to watching late last night. It's a thought-provoking…
The Cat’s Meow 2022
I decided to make a wrap up of everything I enjoyed in the arts an annual tradition. Adding gaming with ArenaNet's stunning debut of the End of Dragons Cantha expansion for Guild Wars 2. It was everything I hoped for and more: beautiful artwork and music, great voice acting and…
Truth in Fiction: The Sandman
I'm going to do something today I haven't really done in my blog despite it being a passion of mine, and examine an episode of television. In this case it's the disturbing "24/7" episode of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Spoilers and dark subject matter ahead. John is a sorcerer of…
Spicy Writing Takes
Before we get down and dirty (no, not like that) do you know what's weirdly controversial? Pizza toppings. Debates about ethical food sourcing and nutrition besides, why does anyone care what anyone else orders on their own damn pizza? Unless you're sharing a pie, it does not matter. Honestly, it's…
Reality Bites: Hogwarts ‘n All
Years ago, I stocked a retail display of mysterious merchandise in celestial packaging. Someone had written a book about a wizard, and a movie was coming out. I found out it was a woman writing under her initials, presumably to conceal her identity since many readers shun women authors, and…
Where’s the Beef?
A Better Me came out two weeks ago. At one point, it was in the top 250 for New Adult and College Fantasy. That was cool, but the best part was seeing all the likes and shares from peers and others. The support of the community is so important for…
The Cat’s Meow 2021
“Right now, she wanted nothing more than to shut the rest of the world out and have nothing to worry about except the next page of whatever she was reading.” Genevieve Cogman, The Invisible Library There's still (always) a lot of crummy stuff going on in the world, but for now…
Queen Bees
I've mentioned my novel won't be out until next spring. I also have a new story set to appear in an anthology that has been pushed back to next year (a common occurance 2020/2021 for traditional and independent publishers alike) - which meant 2021 was destined to pass without a…