About stories of all kinds
The desert isn't as empty as we think. Sands crawl over sands, rippling with wind or the tracks of sidewinders. Ruins gape, abandoned by the men who made them and left for an inheritance of the relentless sun. But it's not only elements, lesser creatures, and the relics of human habitation that fill the desert.… Continue reading Gods and Saints: Setting in Story
Canadian literature. Yawn. Why are we like this? Probably because Canadian art, like that of other British Commonwealth nations, is a) recent: comparatively speaking to other literary traditions; b) slow to develop: why make your own art when your "mother" nation has a pre-established canon?; and c) difficult to maintain: why patronize upstarts when, again,… Continue reading On-Line English Literature Discussion: Canadian Authors
In my first year of university, our English professor had us participate in an on-line discussion group about the texts we studied, providing us with different questions or topics to discuss. When we studied Shakespeare's Othello, the topic was the obscure motivation of Iago in his quest to bring Othello down. The professor wanted to… Continue reading On-line English Literature Discussion: Shakespeare’s Dark Knight
A couple summers ago, I got the chance to share some books I love with my older brother and sister. When I asked each of them separately how they’d liked their individual selection, I got opposite (and therefore mirrored) responses: from my brother, “You can sure tell it’s written by a woman,” and from my… Continue reading “You Can Just Tell…”
In recent years there has been growing awareness of the troubling trends in fictional romances, especially, but not limited to, YA romances. It seems to have come to the surface along with the acknowledgment of rape and abuse in society, which is telling. The issues in fiction largely centre on male love interests, particularly the… Continue reading The Wrong Man
Batman Begins--The Land of Oz As deadlines loom and assignments pile up, I'm growing worried that, like L. Frank Baum's Scarecrow, I have no brains left, or that what brains I do have only consist of the Wonderful Wizard's placebo: bran, pins, and needles. Although, I've noticed that some professors have the pictured attitude towards… Continue reading Brains of Bats, Pins, and Needles
I've loved stories since I can remember and have been reading and writing them since I was able to. But when I was probably ten or eleven years old it expanded from general love of stories to a love of books: the physical containers of such awesome worlds. That was about when lots of things… Continue reading Recovering Book Collector
It is a truth universally acknowledged that writers in possession of a good story must be in want of an equally good ending. In my own writing (and, I've been told, in many others' as well) the number of stories started is disproportionate to the number finished, regardless of polishing. Is it a sign of… Continue reading End It: Short Story, Long Story
Every now and then you hear somebody whining about how awful such-and-such a movie adaptation was and how much better its book was and "oh my goodness, if you liked the movie at all or watched it before you read the book you are such a traitor and don't deserve to be mentioned in the… Continue reading Book VS Film
Let me just say, the eReader vs. paper book rivalry is rather a non-issue with me. I personally think that electronic books, be it on an iPhone, computer, or eReader, will not and never can replace a physical book with a beautiful marred, scarred binding and histories of past readers and places pressed in pages… Continue reading Stories Are Ideas
Fictitiously Yours 