If you read through a lot of submission guidelines (or get a lot of rejection letters) like I do, you’ve probably had an editor tell you that if you want to increase your chances of getting published with them, you should read past issues of their magazine/podcast/whathaveyou before submitting. Continue reading
When I first started reading Don Juan by Lord Byron, I was expecting a long boring epic poem. Surprisingly, Don Juan is actually a satire and it’s full of humor. My summary probably won’t be as funny as reading the poem for yourself since I’ll mainly be providing punchlines without all of the set up, but we’ll see how it goes. Continue reading
We get a large variety of stories in this collection. We get an amnesia-based version of hell, a story in which people start blinking out of existence, and a story in which a man finds a portal to another world in order to confront his dead wife who was unfaithful to him. There’s a story about a girl trying to reconnect with her zombie brother, another story about a girl trying to bring her vampire brother back to life, and a short story in which a father and son go on a hunting trip (but they’re not hunting deer). Continue reading
I’m one of those writers who have written stories for years, but has been hesitant to make submissions or show my work to anybody. I’ve decided now’s the time to start putting myself out there. Continue reading
When we first meet Liora, she’s locked in a cage, slave to a reptilian alien who uses her as star of his intergalactic circus. She’s “a trained killer with the beauty of a goddess.” She’s part human, part Damaclan which gives her superpowers like telepathy and super speed. She can share memories with others and even feel their pain for them. With all these awesome powers, I have to wonder how anyone would be able to make her a slave in the first place, let alone keep her locked up. Continue reading
Ida Mae, an elderly woman living in rural Utah, falls and breaks her foot. Her friends Tansy and Arlette take care of her, but Ida Mae needs something to occupy her time while she recovers. Fortunately, Arlette’s granddaughter Eden needs someone to infiltrate an assisted living community in order to solve a murder. Continue reading
At first, John Persons seems like a typical chain-smoking, trench coat-wearing private investigator straight out of a noir movie. He refers to women as broads, dames, skirts, and sometimes birds. However, since this story takes place in the present day, people used to talking about bootylicious selfies have no idea what he’s talking about. Continue reading
Amberlough takes place in an fantasy world roughly equivalent to Weimar era Germany. It’s part John le Carre, part Cabaret. A fascist candidate who isn’t doing well in the polls fixes an election to beat the female candidate who should have won by a landslide. The inhabitants of Amberlough are worried about this since the Ospies intend to outlaw homosexuality, crack down on drug smuggling, and keep anybody from criticizing them, and they’re willing to use violence to get their way. Sure, Amberlough isn’t perfect. There is a lot of corruption on the police force and there’s certain parts of town you don’t want to visit after night, but the Ospies’ solution for this entails eliminating undesirables and taking away everybody’s freedom, so the cure is worse than the disease. Continue reading
Salt Lake Comic Con Fan X 2017 was a lot of fun. Cool costumes, opportunities to meet celebrities, lots of geeky stuff to buy, game rooms, kids activities, and the list goes on. The panels for Weird Al Yankovic and Wallace Shawn were really good and James Roday and Dule Hill from Psych were still as funny as ever. Continue reading
I recently read the first chapter of a poorly written book which shall remain nameless. My first instinct was to delete it and move on, but then I remembered you can always learn something from other writers, even if it’s what not to do. So I read the first chapter again and tried to pinpoint exactly why I thought it was poorly written. Continue reading
Mania Delight 