Reading
More from Folklore: Aesop’s Fables
We’re moving on to The Conference of the Birds (link goes to Wiki) in tomorrow’s class. Before I switch gears, I wanted to share some facts and thoughts on a misunderstood genre of writing: Aesopic fables. The word “fable” comes from the Latin ”fabula” (a “story”), itself derived from “fari” (“to speak”) with the -ula suffix that signifies “little”: [...]
Folklore: Great Story Collections
Last week I started back at the University of Pennsylvania, after a year off. I’ll be finishing my last semester this Spring, and graduating with a BA in History of Art in May. In addition to the math and biology lecture class and bio lab I must take to graduate, I also got to pick [...]
Books I’m Thankful For
The truth is that I’m thankful for the existence of all books and all other reading material. I’m thankful for that fact that I belong to a species that developed the ability to both create fiction and to find a way to express language in a stored way. Those three skills – language, storage (writing, [...]
Current State of the “To Read” Pile, Nov 2011 (Or, Why I Can’t Buy New Books For A Long, Long, Time)
My life has been chaotic for the last year or so. A lot of what’s happening in my life is happening to other people, and therefore not things I can easily control. I get sidetracked and redirected without warning, trying to keep up with the changes around me, and not doing very well at keeping [...]
I Like Men. There, I Said It.
Recently Don, who happens to be both a man and a writer, talked about how he needed to read more male writers. He’s a voracious reader and especially loves indie writers, and has introduced me to some of the women who now live in my “favorite writers” list. As he says: Everyone who does know [...]
Bulletproof Kinks
Victoria Janssen talked recently about “bulletproof kinks”, those themes and moments in a book or story that make you want to read it. We all have them, the few words that a book can throw onto it’s cover, or that can get mentioned in a review, that make us think, “Oh, I should read that.” [...]
I Haven’t Felt Write In a While
I haven’t felt like much of a writer lately, nor much of an editor either. I’ve let my real life distract me, with changes and drama and illness and the maelstrom of everything that nibbles at you all at once, wanting attention. Life does that sometimes. It rises up to meet you, and you rarely [...]
My “To Be Read” Shelf
After reorganzing my bookshelf last week I ended up with enough space to have a dedicated “to be read” shelf. Most of what I’ve got in my collection are books I’ve already read, with a healthy mix of classic fiction, non fiction (either for academic or personal research), comics/graphic novels, books about zombies and big [...]
I’m Not Afraid to Fall in Love, it Just Happens So Rarely
I’ve been open to the idea of love since I was old enough to think I knew what it was. I know what I’m looking for, what I like and what I don’t, though I’ve also been surprised by someone unexpected who turned out to be wonderful. It’s been over two decades since that first crush, [...]
