City of Writers: A Weekly Newsletter
The novel was published in 1920 about 1870s New York society. It's fascinating how one look, one casual phrase, could destroy a person's entire reputation. I think that's still true, but we can start over somewhere else and bounce back for the most part. If someone is ruined (the Beauforts,…
Back when I was a wee little Gilly, my Ma got roped into a subscription for Reader's Digest Condensed Books. This novel appeared in vol. 217 in 1995, when I was 12. I didn't have the luxury of going to the library often as a child. It truly was a…
I have decided to elevate Ray Bradbury to be the grandfather of my literary aesthetic: cinematic absurdist. I found an essay (an interview, really) in this book where he states "all my stories are cinematic. ... I may be the most cinematic novelist in the country today. All of my…
I have been an avid devourer of books since I was a child. My hunger to read new material got so awful that I would read the phone book. Not the numbers so much, but the information that the book held. I truly believe there is only one literary work…
Life and death are very important themes throughout Jean Anouilh’s “Antigone.” It is made very clear from the very beginning what sort of character Antigone will be. “C’est la petite maigre qui est assise la-bas, et qui ne dit rien. Elle regarde droit devant elle. Elle pense.” Even if you…
A Dirty Job (paid link) was my first novel because I bought the ebook on sale. That novel ended up inspiring me one of the short stories in my thesis, Electric Angels. It taught me that even if there are rules, and your characters are the only ones who know…
You have cleverness, dexterity, and creativity—all of which powerfully combine when you are at risk—if you listen to your intuition.Gavin de Becker, the Gift of Fear I've meant to read this book for ages. I finally finished it with my Digital Silent Book Club and burning through it during my…
Dear Mr. Sirius Black, This is it, I guess. Farewell, goodbye, adieu. I'm ready to let you go now. I saw you fall behind the veil at the Department of Mysteries in Order of the Phoenix. I swear. Minor tears squeaked out from the corners of my eyes as I…
Olivia Joules is a freelance journalist for the Sunday Times. Her editor has asked her to cover a fabulous Hollywood makeup line launch party. While there, she ends up catching the eye of the sexy Pierre Feramo, who may or may not be an Al-Qaeda terrorist. What follows is her…
Twilight is everything that I thought it would be and more. And what I thought was that it was horrendous. The language feeds into its young adult target audience. I went into reading it knowing it was trussed up LDS fanfiction, and it read like that. My opinion didn't change…