Month: October 2013

  • Have Stories: Will Travel

    Continuing the tradition of the traveling bard, the 21st Century Scop will be hitting the road this week, heading off to England to give readings at the University of Brighton on Wednesday, October 30 (5:30 PM), and then at the World Fantasy Convention’s Reading Café on Saturday, November 2 (12:30 PM). If you’re going to…

  • The Shortest Flashes Ever Written, or . . . How Short is Short-Short?

    In an earlier post, I shared my thoughts on “Bedtime Story” by Jeffrey Whitmore – a short-short story that weighs in at a flyweight 55 words. Since then, I have given flash fiction presentations at PAISTA and in my advanced writing class at Sewickley Academy – both of which have given me the opportunity to…

  • The Stars Align

    I’ve just heard from a good friend who has a membership to the  World Fantasy Convention in Brighton. The convention sold out over six months ago, and since then memberships to the international gathering of writers, editors, publishers and fans have been trading like stock futures. If you’re interested in fantastic literature, WFC is definitely…

  • Putting the Flash in Fiction

    What makes for a good flash fiction story? The answer is elusive, even though we know the good stories when we read them. They’re the ones that grab our attention, hold our interest, and conclude with a punch. But there’s more to it than that. There always is. Next week, I’ll be giving a presentation…

  • Book City

    I sometimes get the feeling that we book people are citizens of a kind of portable municipality, a diffused city that reforms around various conventions, conferences, festivals, symposiums, and literary events. We’re united by the love of story, the feel of books, and the knowledge that vicarious experience can be as meaningful and real as…

  • Book City

    I sometimes get the feeling that we book people are citizens of a kind of portable municipality, a diffused city that reforms around various conventions, conferences, festivals, symposiums, and literary events. We’re united by the love of story, the feel of books, and the knowledge that vicarious experience can be as meaningful and real as…