Monday, March 31, 2025
Saturday, March 29, 2025
[Link] The Classic Novel You’ve Been Misunderstanding All Along
by Girish Shukla
Mary Shelley’s 'Frankenstein' is often regarded as a simple tale of horror—a mad scientist creates a monster, and chaos ensues. This enduring image has been cemented by pop culture adaptations, where the creature is often portrayed as a lumbering, inarticulate beast. However, the novel is far more complex and thought-provoking than this surface-level interpretation suggests. Beneath its gothic exterior lies a profound exploration of humanity, responsibility, and the dangers of unbridled ambition.
Not Just a Monster Story
Contrary to popular belief, 'Frankenstein' isn’t about a monster terrorizing the countryside. Instead, it’s a deeply philosophical novel that grapples with what it means to be human. Victor Frankenstein’s creation, often mistakenly referred to as "Frankenstein," is not a mindless beast but a sentient being with emotions, intelligence, and a desperate desire for acceptance.
The real tragedy of the story lies in how Victor abandons his creation, leaving him to navigate a hostile world alone. The creature’s descent into violence is not inherent but a response to rejection and suffering, raising questions about society’s role in shaping individuals.
The True Villain of the Story
One of the most misunderstood aspects of 'Frankenstein' is the identity of its villain. Many assume the creature is the antagonist, but a closer reading suggests otherwise. Victor Frankenstein, driven by unchecked ambition, creates life without considering the consequences.
Victor’s failure to take responsibility for his actions is the true source of the story’s tragedy. His abandonment of the creature sets a chain of events in motion, leading to suffering for everyone involved. Shelley uses Victor’s flawed character to critique the dangers of hubris and the ethical dilemmas of scientific progress.
A Critique of Scientific Ambition
Written during a time of rapid scientific discovery, 'Frankenstein' reflects growing anxieties about the limits of human knowledge. Victor’s experiments push the boundaries of life and death, but his lack of foresight and moral consideration leads to disastrous consequences.
Shelley’s novel is not an indictment of science itself but a warning against pursuing knowledge without responsibility. The story remains relevant today as we grapple with ethical questions surrounding artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and other technological advancements.
Read the full article: https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/books/features/the-classic-novel-youve-been-misunderstanding-all-along-article-117423296
Friday, March 28, 2025
New Imprint Falstaff Dread Launches with killer historical vampire novel!
Ten years ago, Ezekiel escaped one evil, only to watch helplessly as an even more ancient evil in the form of a vampire ripped his wife from his grasp.
Ezekiel’s hunt began in the ashes of his former life.
Now, the Civil War burns through the American South, and Ezekiel cuts his own swath of destruction, battling man and monster alike. Two unlikely allies join him in his quest: Will, a member of the Union's Ambulance Corp, and Kate, a young Confederate sympathizer. The jaded, world-weary hunter doesn't know if his wife is alive or dead, just that revenge is a dish best served bloody red.
Available from Falstaff Books.
Thursday, March 27, 2025
CS McKinney and the Off-Putting Aspects of Life
Writing stories about the unspoken and sometimes off-putting aspects of dating, romance, and life is CS McKinney's passion. With each book, he envisiosn the stories that feel familiar or connect with the reader on a certain level. By taking on the tough topics, he hopes to inspire others to find a life of love and happiness without having to make the same mistakes as the book characters.
When he's not writing, he enjoys competing in triathlons, playing music, and hiking.
Tell us a bit about your most recent work.
No Wrong, Just Write, is my latest publication. I decided to take a detour from writing novels to compile a step-by-step guide of how I write, publish and promote books. Many people have asked questions about my process, and in an effort to share this knowledge efficiently, I wanted to breakdown my thoughts into an easy-to-follow system.
What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?
Romance and Mystery are my favorite genres to write. Inside of those areas, I find myself revisiting first loves and taboo topics the most.
Monday, March 24, 2025
Saturday, March 22, 2025
[Link] On Dames and Dark Cities
by Christa Faust
They called me a femme fatale in the media, back when that Jesse Black fiasco went down. Most people have no idea what it really means. Most people think it means badass with tits, but that’s not it at all. A real femme fatale is a villain, and I always thought of myself as a hero. At least I tried to be.
Turned out they were right.
That’s the opening of my new novel THE GET OFF. It’s the last in the Angel Dare series and represents the end of an era. For her and for me. Telling her story has been a significant and transformative part of my life for more than a decade. It’s the thing that defined me, the thing that I was and am the most proud of.
It’s also in the rearview mirror now. Which leaves me feeling a little bit melancholy but also very excited to see what kinda trouble I can get into next.
By some cosmic coincidence, the theme of this year’s Noir City Festival is “femmes who made Film Noir fatale.” It’s a dynamite lineup of flicks that highlight the genre’s top actresses, many of whom are also featured in the new, expanded edition of Dark City Dames by Eddie Muller.
Read the full article: https://buttondown.com/christafaust/archive/on-dames-and-dark-cities/
Friday, March 21, 2025
Taylorverse Books releases Sean Taylor's first poetry-only collection -- WHEN WE HAD NO FLAG!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Atlanta, GA -- Taylorverse Books releases Sean Taylor's first poetry-only collection -- WHEN WE HAD NO FLAG!
While the book contains mostly new poems from 2004 and 2005, it also collects several of his poems going all the way back to 1994. All poetry collected in the book has a certain, specific attitude summed up by the opening quotes from the book:
“The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.”
—George Orwell“All poets, all writers are political. They either maintain the status quo, or they say, ‘Something’s wrong, let’s change it for the better.’”
—Sonia Sanchez“All stories are political; they involve power that has structural underpinnings and material consequences.”
—Judy Rohrer
"Make no mistake," says Taylor, "these are politically charged poems. There's no way around them. While they may contain the language of pop culture and religion, all these poems work together make a statement."
With references as varied as Bob Dylan, Langston Hughes, Rita Hayworth, and Mae West (among others), this collection has been a long time coming.
"Sometimes you can't help but stop and write because the world forces you to have something to say, something you feel is important. WHEN WE HAD NO FLAG is that something for me," says Taylor.
Sean Taylor writes short stories, novellas, novels, graphic novels, and comic books (yes, Virginia, there is a difference between comic books and graphic novels, just like there's a difference between a short story and a novel). In his writing life, he has directed the “lives” of zombies, superheroes, goddesses, dominatrices, Bad Girls, pulp heroes, and yes, even frogs, for such diverse bosses as IDW Publishing, Gene Simmons, and The Oxygen Network. Visit him online at www.thetaylorverse.com and www.badgirlsgoodguys.com.
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Thursday, March 20, 2025
Morgan Dante: Queer, Sensuous, Moody, and Melancholy (And Especially Angst)

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.
My most recent book, Sacrament, is an M/M/M dark vampire romance that takes place in 1898 Paris and features a complicated, bisexual polycule between three men. The main character deals with the dark, somewhat clandestine world of vampires. It was released on Valentine's Day.
What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?
Because I am a trans, queer author who always writes queer characters, I tend to explore themes about identity and being accepted for who you are, no matter how the rest of the world perceives you. Characters who would usually be marginalized or deemed monstrous are portrayed sympathetically. They contend with trauma and find comfort and acceptance, although the road isn't always easy or straightforward.
What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?
I have always written. I think I wrote my first (very short) story when I was in first grade. I remember writing an adventure for a fourth grade creative writing assignment and the teacher recognizing that I was good at writing, and I've always had the desire to keep creating stories and sharing them with others.
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Movie Reviews for Writers: Sinister
We Write Because We Have To
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Writing for Comics -- A Basic Primer for Newbs
Over the weekend I was able to teach a class on basic comic book writing. I always love these classes, but I realized while I was speaking that I'd never turned this talk into an essay for the blog, so I'm remedying that now.
As the cheerleaders say, "Ready? Oooo-Kay!"
The Pre-Writing
Rule number one. Read comic books. Whether you want to call them graphic novels, sequential storytelling, floppies, or the classic term comic books, you must read them.
If you want to know how this particular medium works you must be well versed in it. Just like a screenplay or a stage play has its own set of rules, comic book writing has its own set of rules as well.
Whether you write full script or Marvel style (more on that further in) you still have to know the language of comic books. This is no different than knowing the language of fiction writing with its grammar, beats, dialog, characterization, setting, plot, theme, etc. In fact, all those things apply to writing comics too, but writing for comics comes with even more tools you need to learn. Panels, word balloons, thought balloons, narrative captions, internal monolog captions, page turns, etc. These are new and important concepts to learn to be able to effectively and efficiently write a script for sequential pictures.Rule number two. Think big. Your special effects budget is only limited by your artist's ability and your combined imagination. That interstellar battle you could never get a budget for in an indie movie or for a stage play, go ahead and write it. That hospital being attacked by giant cockroach creatures from a mythology you made up, no problem (I, in fact, did write this scene in Fishnet Angel: Jane Doe). Just do it, as Nike said. The sky is the limit. Your SFX bottom line is infinity. Period. (Unless your artist's hand cramps up.)
Remember your basics. You still need a story. You still need a story triangle with rising action, falling action, etc. You still need a beginning, middle, and end (even if you are writing a multi-issue with cliffhanger endings). You still need well developed characters. You still need a reason for the story and it needs to have something to say. Comics are no different than classic literature or Summer bestsellers that way.
One last thing... and this part is going to sound like I'm arguing with myself. These two things sound like they're the opposite of each other. But don't be fooled. They're important.
Here it is: Tighten your story. Now, once it's tight, let it breathe.
Monday, March 17, 2025
Saturday, March 15, 2025
[Link] Small Changes
by Emily Miller
There is obviously a political context to this post. A context that difficult things have happened and more difficult things are likely to happen in the future. For people like me, and maybe you, there is a sense of powerlessness, a sense of what we think and what we do doesn’t really matter.
I also feel like I don’t recognize my country, or maybe that I just hate what my country has clearly become. It’s dispiriting, paralyzing even.
In the face of such challenges, this is not intended to be a pep talk. It is not intended to be a rallying cry (even I’m not quite so narcissistic as to think anyone would rally to a cry I made, I’m nobody). But, contrary to my parenthetic words, this brief article is about the things that a nobody like me – maybe like you – can do. And it’s not hypothetical, it’s based on small things I have actually done, small things I have actually achieved.
So, I write erotic literature if I am feeling pompous, and I scribble porn if I am in a more realistic mood. Some people expect me to be ashamed of this. I’m not. I think any form of consensual and legal sex is a blessing to be cherished and celebrated, not something dirty to be hidden. And it’s fun to write, I deal with real human emotions, as well as procreative bodily functions.
What difference can smut make in the world? Well maybe not a lot, certainly with my limited audience, but not zero difference either. Here are four examples of small changes I have made in people’s lives through what I write.
Read the full article: https://emilymillerlit.wordpress.com/2024/11/07/small-changes/
Friday, March 14, 2025
Taylorverse Books releases BAD GIRLS, GOOD GUYS AND TWO-FISTED ACTION!
- Rick Ruby
- Lance Star
- Agara, Goddess of the Dark Lands
- Ulysses King
- The Peregrine
- Armless O'Neil
- The world of The New Deal
- Aym Geronimo and the Post-Modern Pioneers
- Blackthorn
Monday, March 10, 2025
Saturday, March 8, 2025
[Link] Evocation and allusion: Hemingway’s book titles
by Jeffrey Meyers
The best titles of Hemingway’s novels and stories have biblical and literary sources, poetic evocations of the themes, and allusions to tragedy, trauma and death. His fiction often returns to his teenage wound and narrow escape from death during World War I in Italy. By suggesting the physical locales and using bitter irony to foreshadow fatal events, he enhances the meaning of his work, reminds readers of literary associations and draws them into the tales.
The title of The Garden of Eden (published posthumously in 1986) comes from Genesis 3:24, “So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword” to keep Adam and Eve out. The title warns that the characters’ idyllic life in France and Spain will not last.
A Moveable Feast (1964), with its idiosyncratic spelling, comes from a heading in The Book of Common Prayer (1549): “Movable feasts, Tables and Rules.” These holidays are not fixed dates like Christmas, but like Easter occur on a different day each year. Hemingway uses the phrase literally to suggest the endless youthful pleasures of food, drink, sport, friendship, sex and love in Paris during the 1920s. In Across the River and Into the Trees (1950) Colonel Cantwell says “Happiness, as you know, is a movable feast.” In the posthumously published True at First Light (1999) Hemingway (himself often a movable beast) calls love a “moveable feast.” But the melancholy mood beneath the festivities warns that these pleasures cannot last.
In In Our Time (1925) the sketches of life and death, which capture essential moments between 1914 and 1923, ironically echo the hope expressed and invocation denied in The Book of Common Prayer, “Give peace in our time, O Lord.” After World War I the soldier Nick Adams experiences bitter trauma rather than tranquil peace.
The Sun Also Rises (1926) comes from Ecclesiastes 1:4-5, quoted in the epigraph: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.” The preacher declares the world is nothing more than “vanity of vanities.” Men soon die, but the earth lasts forever. The pristine fishing scenes in the Pyrenees mountains of Spain contrast with the characters’ decadent life in Paris.
In To Have and Have Not (1937), the 1930s Depression theme suggests the struggle for existence; the unequal conflict between the rich and the poor; between those who own and don’t work and those who work but don’t own. Hemingway quotes Matthew 25:29 to express the economic conditions of the poor: “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
Read the full article: https://www.thearticle.com/evocation-and-allusion-hemingways-book-titles
Friday, March 7, 2025
Crazy 8 Press' Thrilling Adventure Yarns 2025 is now on sale!
To honor and celebrate the bygone era of pulp magazines, Crazy 8 Press has assembled a stellar lineup of writers to produce new thrills and chills, spanning mystery, sword and sorcery, horror, science fiction, romance, and adventures. We will take you to other worlds, other realms, and other times where heroes and heroines battled for justice or survival or just getting through the day.
Thrill to brand new stories from Dan Abnett, Charles Ardai, Liz Braswell, Russ Colchamiro, Win Scott Eckert, Mary Fan, Michael Jan Friedman, Paul Kupperberg, Elliot S Maggin, Jeffrey J. Mariotte, Author Bobby Nash, Christopher Priest, Aaron Rosenberg, Hildy Silverman, William F Wu. Edited by Robert Greenberger. Cover b Jeffrey Hayes.
Each yarn is bigger and better than the one before it!
Thursday, March 6, 2025
The Great White Savior (Or Why It's Way Past Time To Retire Tarzan, Sheena, and The Last Samurai)
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: While Atticus is portrayed as a moral hero, the narrative centers on his perspective and heroism rather than Tom's experience and agency.
- The Help by Kathryn Stockett: The story revolves around a young white journalist, Skeeter Phelan, who writes a book about the experiences of black maids in the 1960s South. The narrative often shifts focus from the maids' struggles to Skeeter's journey and growth.
- The Blind Side (2009): The narrative emphasizes the wealthy white family's role in Michael's success, overshadowing Michael's own resilience and efforts.
- Dangerous Minds (1995): A white teacher, LouAnne Johnson, takes a job at an inner-city school and is depicted as the savior of her predominantly non-white students, who are portrayed as needing her guidance to succeed.
- Avatar (2009): A white protagonist, Jake Sully, becomes the savior of the Na'vi, an indigenous alien race, by leading them in a fight against human colonizers. This narrative centers on his transformation and heroism rather than the Na'vi's own resistance.
- The Last Samurai (2003): A white protagonist, Captain Nathan Algren, joins the Samurai to resist the Emperor and imperialism as part of the Satsuma Rebellion. The story focuses on Algren's journey to be a hero rather than the efforts of the Samurai (wich a few exceptions that need to be shown in how they related to Algren's growth).
- The Phantom (comic strip, movie, comic books): While the mask may hide the identity of "The Ghost Who Walks," it never hides the fact that this hero of the jungle is the white man Kit Walker.
Monday, March 3, 2025
Saturday, March 1, 2025
[Link] This Is How Reading Rewires Your Brain
According to Neuroscience, reading doesn’t just cram information into your brain. It changes how your brain works.
by Jessica Stillman
We all know reading can teach you facts, and knowing the right thing at the right time helps you be more successful. But is that the entire reason just about every smart, accomplished person you can think of, from Bill Gates to Barack Obama, credits much of their success to their obsessive reading?
Not according to neuroscience. Reading, science shows, doesn’t just fill your brain with information; it actually changes the way your brain works for the better as well.
The short- and long-term effects of reading on the brain.
This can be short term. Different experts disagree on some of the finer details, but a growing body of scientific literature shows that reading is basically an empathy workout. By nudging us to take the perspective of characters very different from ourselves, it boosts our EQ. This effect can literally be seen in your brain waves when you read. If a character in your book is playing tennis, areas of your brain that would light up if you were physically out there on the court yourself are activated.
Another line of research shows that deep reading, the kind that happens when you curl up with a great book for an extended period of time, also builds up our ability to focus and grasp complex ideas. Studies show that the less you really read (skim reading from your phone doesn’t count), the more these essential abilities wither.
Read the full article: https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/reading-books-brain-chemistry.html