In the Distance is an interesting novel. And I say that, recognizing that I tell students never to call anything “interesting” (you can usually find a better descriptor). It’s by Hernan Diaz, and is the story a young boy named Hakan. He leaves his native Sweden for New York, is accidentally separated from his brother, …
Continue reading Hernan Diaz’s In the Distance = Frankenstein
“Slipstream” is a genre of fiction. Or it isn’t—that seems to be the big debate. I’ve been sending fiction to get published for the last year or so, and “slipstream” is a term that keeps coming up, alongside “cyberpunk,” “dystopia,” “military scifi,” “science-fantasy,” “weird fiction,” and all the other subgenres of science fiction or speculative …
Continue reading “Feeling Very Strange” — the Anthology I’m Reading, NOT my Current State of Mind
Earlier this year I went to a used book sale. Featured here is my small haul. Have I read any of them yet? No. Do I plan on reading them? Definitely. The goal: to get it done between now and the end of the year (we’ll see if it happens!). So as you might might …
This week I got a real, full-length short story published. It is called “Mae Jemison Cheeks” and you can read it here, in “Schlock Magazine.” I’m also really proud of it—and not just because “Mae Jemison Cheeks” represents a bit of a branching out for me. When I first started writing fiction all I wrote …
Continue reading “Mae Jemison Cheeks” published in “Schlock Magazine” (2,361 words)
Ready Player One is coming out as a film, and undoubtedly it it will be as good as the novel. Steven Spielberg is directing, and though he’s often criticized for being a little saccharine and pop-corny, Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, is also a little saccharine and pop-corny. The novel isn’t perfect—the protagonist is …
A Wrinkle in Time is weird. It’s been very popular since Madeleine L’Engle (giving the late Ursula K. Le Guin a run for the name-pronunciation money) wrote it in 1963. Very soon it will also come out as a big-budget film, and I’m excited for that. Oprah is in the film, and Oprah’s never made …
BATCH & NARRATIVE 