Monthly Archives: January 2011
Review: The Sherlockian by Graham Moore
Well. The Sherlockian. It was a highly celebrated debut novel in 2010, and after reading it, it’s not hard to see why. It’s not the best book I’ve ever read, but Mr. Moore set himself a very high bar here, and I think he managed to jump over it. Or pass it with flying colors. […]
Tension in Writing
Sol Stein writes this is in his chapter on tension: “Our instinct as human beings is to provide answers, to ease tenion. As writers our job is the opposite, to create tension and not dispel it immediatly….A common fault I’ve observed is that the writer creates a pressing problem for a character and then immediatly […]
A New Day, a New Blog
I feel that a new blog deserves some new words to announce its arrival. Over here at Stormy Night Publishing we’re going to be looking at what makes a “good” book and ways we can hold ourselves to those standards. As I’ve been reading Stein on Writing, I realize that I know a lot of […]
>Thoughts on the Short Story
> Have you ever read “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway? I read it when I was in college, and I didn’t really like it, but it is a story that has since stuck with me. A short story is typically defined as a “snap shot” in time. Just one small moment captured forever […]
>Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire
>I did not want to waste another minute without telling you all how I feel about Ruth Downie’s debut novel, Medicus. I bought it as a Christmas present for my mom so that I could read it before I gave it to her, but alas, it did not arrive in time for me to get […]
>Jasper Fforde and the Eyre Affair
>I think I’m ready to talk about Jasper Fforde now. Well, not just about him, although I’m sure he’s a lovely person, but about his character Thursday Next and her first novel, The Eyre Affair. My first beef with this book is the flap, but since Mr. Fforde had nothing to do with that, I’ll […]
>Review: Electric Literature
>When I first read that Amazon offered many magazines in digital form straight to your Kindle, I snorted. Kindles are for bibliophiles, and when I think of magazines I think of things like Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times. Those aren’t things that real book readers read, right? But while those titles are available […]
>Janus at the door: looking behind and ahead
>I thought now would be a good time to look back at where I was a year ago in my life. Well, weather-wise, we have seen some definite changes. There was no blizzard on Christmas, and it has hardly gotten below freezing this winter. Global Warming must be true! In more good news, my house […]