scop (noun): Old English – bard, minstrel, storyteller
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Celebrating Frankenstein Weekend …
@ The Little Green Bookstore in ZelienopleYesterday was Frankenstein Friday. That’s according to the website National Today, which as near as I can figure is a site where folks suggest holidays and have them listed for others to celebrate. Though not to be confused with the official holidays and various observances identified on your Google calendar, National Today’s designation works for…
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Frankenstein: The Creation Scene
Sutured body parts, flashing electrodes, bubbling chemicals–they’re some of the best-known elements of the Frankenstein creation scene. And none are in the novel. For over 200 years, playwrights, screenwriters, comic artists, and (more recently) game designers have endeavored to fill in the blanks of a process that Mary Shelley’s narrative covers in fewer than 100…
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On a Night in November…
Shelley’s “Hideous Progeny” Comes Alive“It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils.” So begins the creation scene in the book that The Guardian calls one of the top 10 novels of all time. And this November, that scene and more will come alive as Prime Stage Theatre premieres the first production…
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A Week of Readings:
HWA, Frankenstein, & Mystery TheatreThe last time I posted about the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Horror Writers Association was back in the halcyon days of 2019 (read that post here) when the effects of pandemics were relegated to films like Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011) or books like John Scalzi’s Lock In (2014) and Stephen King’s The Stand (1978). Back…
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Thinking Like a Writer: Finding the Words
For Mark Twain, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” For Mary Shelley, it is the difference between creature and being. We can see her deliberation in the excerpt (at left) of her Frankenstein manuscript, where she makes a choice that best…
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One Night in Geneva:
The Birth of a Prosperous ProgenyIn 1831, her first novel having achieved pop-culture status thanks to a string of adaptations in England, Europe, and America (see last week’s post), Mary Shelley introduced the second edition of Frankenstein by writing: “Once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper.” Little could she have foreseen just how prosperous it would…