My wife and I enjoy watching murder mystery movies on Hallmark. More accurately, the Hallmark Movies and Mystery Channel (HMMC). Many of them had previously run on the Hallmark Channel that most folks are more familiar with. My previous cable provider didn’t provide HMMC at the tier I purchased, and many of my friends don’t have it either. It’s out there, but it’s not a low-tier feature in many systems. Which is a shame, because there’s a lot of viewing…
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Taking advantage of the fact that I’m not teaching this summer, I decided instead to take a course in the Fiction Program at Columbia College: Censorship and Writing. The course explores many kinds of censorship, not just the book-banning, burning, remove it from the library kinds. It includes self-censorship, social censorship, and censorship in the news, among others. Last week, one of our assignments was to write an essay about something we had learned about writing from reading another author….
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To my left, dwarf iris. To my right, lilacs. All around me, sunlight. Because truly, the only appropriate location to write a review of Frederic S. Durbin’s latest novel, A Green and Ancient Light, is in a garden with a blue sky above and a wisteria-tinged wind teasing by. OK, OK. A sacred wood would also be suitable… but they are harder to find in Iowa. What’s not hard to find in Iowa? Cornfields. Which is where I procured my…
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This morning’s post would have been about Houdini and Doyle, the new TV series airing Monday nights on Fox. Except I missed the pilot: and contrary to much public opinion, I only write posts on subjects I know something about. Maybe not much, but… From what I can tell, it’s a buddy cop show in which the pair, one a believer in supernatural phenomena (Doyle), the other a skeptic (Houdini), investigates crimes. Brings to mind a poor man’s Mulder and…
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So I’ve been falling down on my blogging duties the last few weeks, but as the title of my blog maybe tells you, I’m a teacher before I’m a blogger. It’s the end of the semester and I’ve been teaching two classes, a directed studies (think independent study but with weekly meetings), and advising Myth-Ink, the Columbia College – Chicago student science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing club. I require the students in the more advanced course, the Fantasy Writing…
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Last week, we had something of an introduction to Tony Hillerman and his Navajo Tribal Police novels. A quick read before continuing on here might serve you well. Or, you can throw caution to the wind and keep going! In July of 1945, Hillerman was was on a sixty day convalescent furlough from World War II, with a patch over a damaged eye and a cane to assist his gimpy leg. He had been wounded near the German village of Niefern….
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This is part 9 in the Choosing Your Narrative Point of View Series After I turned in my blog last week, I met my husband at a blues club. I do a lot of writing, and thinking about writing, while listening to live music. For years I have been using my story “What’s With All the Damned Zombies, Anyway?” to explain to my students the Head-Hopper point of view. Years. Just as I did in last week’s blog. And it…
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The number one post at the Black Gate blog last month was Sean McLachlan’s report on the historically fascinating castles of Gondar, Ethiopia. Sean’s adventures in Ethiopia certainly captured the attention of our readers — he also had the #3 post, with his photo-essay on the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. Coming in at #2 was the fifth chapter in William I. Lengeman III’s ongoing Star Trek re-watch, on Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. I’ve been re-watching the early…
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This is one section of a serialized novel presented by Black Gate magazine. It is offered at no cost and appears with the permission of Mark Rigney, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part. All rights reserved. Copyright 2016 by Mark Rigney. This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or current events is purely coincidental. This is Chapter Fifteen. To read Chapter Fourteen, click…
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In late December 1935, science fiction author Otto Binder moved from Chicago to NYC to represent Otis Adelbert Kline’s literary agency. Among the authors he represented for Kline’s agency was Robert E. Howard. Binder had been to NYC previously, in late June and early July 1935, with his friends Clifford Kornoelje (better known in SF circles as Jack Darrow) and Bill Dellenback. As I’ve mentioned before, back in 2001 I bought a few boxes of correspondence from Darrow’s estate, including…
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