Lawrence C. Connolly

The 21st-Century Scop banner

scop (noun): Old English – bard, minstrel, storyteller

  • Upcoming Events at Prime Stage Theatre:
    Mystery, Monsters, and More …

    This site has been quiet for a while. Things have been busy, what with dodging the microscopic shrapnel of World War C. Through it all, I’ve been doing my best to learn from the examples set by writers who lived through past epidemics – Sherwood Anderson, Beatrix Potter, and W.E.B. Du Bois (all of whom…

  • Moving Forward:
    Life in a Science-Fiction Novel

    A few months back, while prepping for The International Conference on the Fantastic, I wrote a piece titled “Existential Threats” that considered how social media and digital tech were reshaping our culture. The essay centered on two sf classics, Ray Bradbury’s “The Murderer” (pictured at left) and Arthur C. Clarke’s “Dial F for Frankenstein.” Since…

  • Fiction for the Ears:
    Storytelling for Shut-Ins

    […] there would be three months of enforced isolation and leisure, between the harvest that takes place just before the rise of the swamps and the clearing of new farms when the water goes down […]. As the swamps rose, the old men found it too difficult the walk from one homestead to the next,…

  • Surviving World War C:
    Music to Span the Social Distance

    Last week’s post offered a list of “Podcasts for Shut-Ins,” which included what was then an unreleased installment of Inside The Hive. Although I had expected that podcast to feature an interview with screenwriter Scott Burns (Contagion), it instead offered a conversation with radio host Kai Ryssdal (Marketplace). Titled “Coronovirus against the World,” the interview…

  • Podcasts for Shut-Ins:
    Tune In, Hunker Down

    I’ve been trying to track down a piece that I heard on NPR following the 9-11 attacks. I can’t remember who delivered it, but the voice in my memory sounds like Scott Simon. It was a reflective piece about the uncertainty felt in the aftermath of the attacks, a time when the country was bracing…

  • Walking and Talking:
    Things to Come in 2020

    “If you’re going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk.” You know the expression. It’s all about the importance of doing, as in Death of a Salesman, where all-talk Willy Loman is amazed to learn that all-walk Bernard is going to argue a case before the supreme court. “The Supreme Court!” Willy…