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Twelve Literary Journals Your Future Agent is Reading
Writer’s Digest “polled 40 literary agents to see which journals they read with an eye for new talent. Then, [they] rounded up 12 of their picks and contacted the publications’ editors for an inside glimpse at each one—and exclusive tips on how you can break in.”
Running from God One Way or Another?
Surprised by Grace trailer from Crossway on Vimeo.
Relentless, by Dean Koontz
Dean Koontz is a bold writer when it comes to experimenting with genres. In Relentless he gives us a comic horror science fiction thriller. It’s a very enjoyable and compelling book, but I’m not entirely sure all its parts work together.
I’ve said in other reviews that I admire Koontz’s general avoidance of the common (lazy) writer’s trick of telling stories about writers. But Relentless is about a writer (and his family). It could hardly have been otherwise, given the premise.
If horror means basing plots on our greatest fears, there can be no greater horror premise for a writer than a sociopathic critic. Negative critics are the enemies against whom there is no defense. Fighting a critic is a loser’s game. But how much worse if that critic wants you (and your family) dead? Continue reading Relentless, by Dean Koontz
Story City (and Minneapolis) story
It was a pretty strenuous weekend, by my effete standards, but I made it through to the safe haven of another work week. The continuing theme was rain: I feared it; I expected it. I was pleasantly surprised.
Friday morning I drove down Highway 35 to Story City, Iowa (which, if you’ve been reading for a while, you may recall is the birthplace of my sainted grandmother) for the Scandinavian Days festival. I was representing the Viking Age Club & Society all by myself this year, with Sam the Viking, who owns the Viking boat, up from Missouri to keep me company. Here’s our camp.
Continue reading Story City (and Minneapolis) story
Biodiversity: The New Global Warming
E. Calvin Beisner points to an upcoming U.N. report to say climate alarmists are shifting from climate change to protecting various species around the world as another way to advance totalitarian politics.
Nonetheless, as global warming fears collapse in the face of Climategate, the green socialist machine is scrambling to be ready to switch gears. Perhaps the new rationale for global wealth redistribution and deindustrialization will be preserving biodiversity. It’s a good candidate: It has all the flaws of global warming – bad science, bad economics and totalitarian politics.
Tax Proposals to Subsidize Newspapers
FTC may propose internet taxes on news sites to fund old school journalism outlets. “[G]overnment policy would encourage a tax on websites like the Drudge Report, a must-read source for the news links of the day, so that the agency can redistribute the funds collected to various newspapers. Such a tax would hit other news aggregators, such as Digg, Fark and Reddit, which not only gather links, but provide a forum for a lively and entertaining discussion of the issues raised by the stories. Fostering a robust public-policy debate, not saving a particular business model, should be the goal of journalism in the first place.”
Amis: Un-Fun Books Win Awards
Author Martin Amis suggests “unenjoyable” novels win literary awards.
“It all started with [Samuel] Beckett, I think. It was a kind of reasonable response to the horrors of the 20th century — you know, ‘No poetry after Auschwitz’. He described it as a mistake, saying: “You look back at the great writers in the English canon, and the American, and they are all funny.”
Writers such as Dickens, Jane Austen, and George Eliot all shared that trait, he said.
The Faux BBC 100
You’ve seen the lists before saying the BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed. Here’s the list you haven’t seen.
1 Conceit and Chauvinism – Jane Austoon
2 The Dane of the Drinks – PBJ Tokien
3 Jan Eyrie – Charlot Blont
4 Harry, the Boy Who Grows Up to Become a Wizard and Whip an Evil Sorcerer’s Butt series – JK Rowlin
5 To Catch a Mockingbird – Larper Hee
6 The Bible: The Book That Changed the World – Many anonymous authors
7 Withering Snipes – Emily Blont
8 Nineteen Ninety Nine – The Artist Formerly Known as Georgey O.
9 His Dark Materials – Canni Getalight
10 Profound Potential – Charlie B. Dickens
11 Wee Women – Louisa McAlcott
12 Tess: A Sad Novel You Won’t Want to Read – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 33: Prequel to Hyperbole- Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Francis Bacon (The Brain Behind Shakespeare)
15 Daphne Du Maurier – Rebecca Continue reading The Faux BBC 100
Forgotten and Imaginary Books
And now, more of the imaginary or forgotten in the literary. Here’s something from The Believer Magazine, “Short Takes on Books That Don’t Exist: Eleven Essential, Imaginary Beach Reads for Summer” by Steve Hely
From the Guardian a few years ago, here’s a list of books you may not have seen before.