I was living with my folks the last time I saw the Ring Cycle on PBS in the US. I made my parents endure several hours of it before they said, enough! After all I had hi-jacked the TV for several nights. And I was in the middle of Siegfried, and well, maybe….. actually my [...]
Archive for the ‘writing’ Tag
Which do you want? Love or Power: Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen Leave a comment
Writing Faith Workshop begins, Feb 10, 5-8pm, Whitehorse United Church 1 comment
How do you write about your “faith”? How do you describe the indescribable, the ineffable, the otherworldly? the grief or joy or miracle or peace or disappointment that you have because of your faith? Everyone can argue about the value or lack of value in “religion”–and it’s an easy connect-the-dots to create your own [...]
Characters with Something On Their Minds: the brilliant writing inside Deep Impact 1 comment
Recently, I re-watched Deep Impact, one of two “asteroids-going-to-hit-Earth” movies that came out simultaneously (the other being, the poor-in-comparison, Armageddon). Deep Impact builds slowly, and has amazingly drawn characters. It’s worth it to watch just to pick up some tips on character development. These are my thoughts after watching it. 1. Every character in the [...]
X-Men vs. X-Men: First Class Leave a comment
Okay, I just had to re-watch Brian Singer’s original X-Men (2000) after seeing X-Men: First Class. I wanted to see how these two movies played off each other. Call XM:FC what you want–origin story, prequel–it still has to be a good movie. And I think Singer’s original X-Men is a much better movie than X-Men: [...]
Mob Rules and the Art of the Team Movie— a review of X-Men: First Class 2 comments
I saw X-Men: First Class last night. It was a good, solid action movie with stunning special effects. It moves and kept me interested. It never had me on the edge of my seat. It’s an origin story– it has to go through certain details to collect them all–but it doesn’t do it very interestingly, [...]
Janelle Monáe and Science Fiction: Metropolis, Freedom, and the Other 3 comments
I like finding science fiction in odd places. Janelle Monáe is a genius. Think if the Archies had been a ska band with a funk lead singer. But she’s more than that. She’s also a brilliant storyteller. Her “Many Moons” reimagines the beginnings of science fiction cinema, Metropolis. She gives the silent film Metropolis the [...]
The Nudge, The Monument, and The Fan Base: thoughts about the endurance of writers 2 comments
Roger Ebert responded recently to an article by Cynthia Ozick written in the New Republic. So goes my reading. I get my Ozick from Ebert, but that’s ’cause I’m reading where Ebert is writing. I don’t have a subscription to the New Republic (but, alas, I should). Anyway, he quotes from her a lengthy passage [...]
“…his cultivation of genuine menace…”: a review of “One Nation Under Gods” at Portal Leave a comment
Val Grimm, over at the Portal, gave me a good review for my short story, “One Nation Under Gods”! Thanks, Val. I’m always thrilled that there are people who will review short fiction, and anthologies. Thank you, Val! Val reviews the whole anthology, Tesseracts 14, story by story. Here is his review of mine: The [...]
Mac’s Fireweed, Noon, Saturday, signing with me and Dave Strachan Leave a comment
Thanks everyone for coming out and being a part of our signing at Mac’s Fireweed! Two anthologies I’m a part of: Tesseracts 14 and Inhuman, and Dave Strachan, who has the lead story in Inhuman, was signing too! The Fantasy/Science Fiction community in Whitehorse is doing great! More and more of our group are stretching [...]
What is Realms of Fantasy looking for? Leave a comment
The Clarion Foundation (parent of Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop) has a wonderful blog. Douglas Cohen, an editor from Realms of Fantasy, recently wrote a guest post there talking about the view from Realms of Fantasy, from its long run in the industry, including its two recent revivals with new publishers. There is some [...]
