Photo: Alexis Wary & NEXTpittsburgh
scop (noun): Old English – bard, minstrel, storyteller
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Sizing Up The Odyssey:
The Shapes of Wonder. “Not all viewings are created equal.” That’s according to a recent article in The Atlantic, in which staff writer Will Gottsegen considers how IMAX 70mm is being touted as “the way to see Nolan’s creation.” Taking the bait, I attended a screening at the Regal UA near Philadelphia, one of only 25 theatres…
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Author Readings:
Live Performance in an AI World. Three thousand years ago, The Odyssey was a live event. Composed in the oral tradition by a storyteller who might have been named Homer, it was delivered from memory to live audiences long before it was ever written down. Likewise, the epic poem Beowulf existed exclusively as a spoken-word…
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Readings, Panels, and Workshops
This week at In the Your Write Mind. For many years, I had the pleasure of serving as one of the residency writers at Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction, and this week I get to return to the campus as one of the featured presenters at their annual In Your Write…
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Mary Shelley’s Monster:
The Legacy of Frankenstein. Frankenhooker, AI Intelligence, and Mel Brooks–those were only a few of the topics touched on when six horror writers joined forces at StokerCon 2026 to discuss the ways that Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel remains relevant today. Previewed in my previous post, the StokerCon panel took place at the height of the…
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This Week at StokerCon:
Celebrating the Genre of Poe and Shelley. Of the same generation but an ocean apart, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and Mary Shelley (1797-1851) spawned a genre that horror writers and fans celebrate each year at StokerCon. Billing itself as “an all-inclusive event where writers of all of the many subgenres the horror world may convene…
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Defending “The Lighthouse”
While recovering from cholera in the summer of 1849, Edgar Allan Poe resolved to put his chaotic life in order. He quit drinking, made plans to marry his childhood sweetheart, began raising money for a literary magazine, and started work on a story that would become known as “The Lighthouse.”