Review: Land and Memory: The Woven Past and Present in The Eighth Moon
Land and Memory:The Woven Past and Present in The Eighth MoonThe Eighth Moon By Jennifer KabatMilkweed Editions ISBN: 9781639550685 The Eighth Moon is a memoir not focused on the author, Jennifer Kabat, but on the land around her. Kabat moved to the Catskills of New...
Your Favorite Authors’ Favorite Authors
Have you ever wondered who your favorite authors' favorite authors are? Well you have come to the right place. As a frequent user of GoodReads I took the liberty into investigating who my favorite authors' favorite authors are. If you are also an avid GoodReads...
Maggie Smith’s Many Faces—A Literary Tribute
The day that legendary actress Dame Maggie Smith died was a hard one. Fans across the world raised their cups—and their wands—to the woman who played such characters as Mother Superior, Violet Crawley and the forever iconic Professor Minerva McGonagall. I mean,...
The Storytelling of Quirky Earthbound-Inspired RPGs
I owe a lot of my creative life to the plethora of “quirky Earthbound-inspired” indie RPGs that exist on the internet. You may have heard of some; big titles include Toby Fox’s Undertale and OMOCAT’s Omori. What I love about these games and their storytelling is the...
REVIEW: The Sky Was Once A Dark Blanket
The Sky Was Once A Dark Blanket by Kinsale DrakeThe University of Georgia Press, 2024,80pp, $19.58, paper As a person who reads the odd poem or two and not an entire book, The Sky Was Once A Dark Blanket by Kinsale Drake was a fun adventure to dive into. Kinsale...
Therapy for Thieves: Why Telling an Original Story is Tricky
(Contains spoilers for The Hunger Games and Battle Royale) Can I pitch you my latest novel? It’s about a group of teenagers chosen through a lottery by the government. They’re pitted against each other in a fight to the death as a form of punishment for citizen...
From Page to Screen
When it comes to book adaptations, most people are quick to say “The book is always better!” Although this tends to be true, it’s not always the case. Adaptations are a tricky business, and there are no foolproof tricks to ensure the end product is perfect, though...
From Fate to Hate: When Perfectionism Sours Your Writing Relationship
Take a moment and picture your perfect writing session: in your house, a candle on your desk casting a cozy ambiance…or maybe you’re tucked inside a café, the whir of espresso machines providing a lively soundtrack. Wherever you are, words are gliding from your...
Book Review: The Skunks by Fiona Warnick, reviewed by Emily Miles
Tin House $17.99 226 pages In the spring of 2024 Fiona Warnick published her debut coming-of-age fiction novel The Skunks at the publishing house Tin House. The Skunks follows the main character, Isabel, who recently completed her undergraduate degree from college....
A Story Torn in Two: Revisiting The Shining
It’s no secret that Stephen King isn’t a fan of Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of his novel, The Shining. King has been critical of the film ever since its release in 1980, and has reiterated that statement as recently as 2021. Despite this, many viewers and...
Writer’s Support Group—Today’s Lesson: Terminating Characters
As writers, we all know there will come a time in our fiction when we must end the life of a beloved character. So when is the right time to kill a character? It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when a writer knows it is time to end the storyline of a...
On the Merits of Borrowed Words: A Celebration of Blackout, Found, and Collage Poetry
Blackout, erasure, found, collage—these are all forms of poetry that find themselves through use of pre-written words. (For this post, I’ll use “found” as an umbrella term). While sometimes diminished as lesser literary forms—either due to their simplicity or to the...
