From the monthly archives:

July 2010

Zombies: a series – Zombie Humor

July 30, 2010

Cover of Shaun of the Dead Cover of Zombieland [Blu-ray] No, this post isn’t about shuffling dead taking center stage at the local pub’s open mic night.  Rather, if you like your zombies mixed with a little bit (or a lot) of humor, then the recent  Zombieland and the venerable Shaun of the Dead have [...]

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The Pitfalls of “Originality”

July 28, 2010

One of the distinguishing features of modern society is our preoccupation with originality. Giving proper credit to the creator of something is the basis of everything from copyright law and patent offices to anti-plagiarism policies in high schools and universities. Much of this stems from an artist’s desire to get noticed in some way (as [...]

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Workshops

July 26, 2010

Image via Wikipedia I recently attended a weeklong workshop at the venerable University of Iowa.  This was my second year, and it seemed this time around more was gained from the experience.  It was an advanced short story workshop.  Here are a few of the insights I took away. Keep your promises.  The craft books [...]

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Is A Good Mystery Hard To Find?

July 23, 2010

Cover of Crooked House (Minotaur Mysteries) As a child, I grew up admiring and reading such super-sleuths as Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown. My tastes changed as I grew older and I found myself drawn to true crime novels where the only mystery was what made a person crack and commit such heinous acts as [...]

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Wonder Woman: She’s Always A Woman To Me

July 21, 2010

This is another in my series taking about superhero characters. In my kickoff post I explained how in some ways they are the modern Gods – created in our image to put into stories to help us understand ourselves better. This time I’m looking at Wonder Woman, the Amazon princess who was crafted from clay [...]

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