How to write about snow
It’s March. The week of March 9 was the first time this year that it snowed here where we live.Continue Reading
Category: Published books
Backstories Discussion of film/TV series Published books Readers and reading Review of literary fiction
The origins of “Waiting for the Barbarians”
Uncomfortable truths aplenty come to mind when you read and absorb J.M. Coetzee’s famous dystopian narrative, Waiting for the Barbarians.Continue Reading
Discussion of writing style Historical Nonfiction Nonfiction Published books Review of Nonfiction Review of Reference Work
Megalomaniac Masters and Monarchs (2) – What is it with harems?
In this post, I continue looking at a select few biographies about mad, bad and dangerous monarchs and masters ofContinue Reading
Backstories CanLit Creative Process Detective fiction Discussion of genre Discussion of writing style List of similar books Mysteries and Thrillers Published books Realistic Fiction
Real World Meets Realism – Devil’s Run, by Gordon Mohs (Part 3 of 3)
In this post I continue looking into the subject of factual accuracy in Fiction, and specifically Realistic Fiction and theContinue Reading
Backstories Current events List of similar books Modern fiction Published books Publishing technologies
Dismissive of mass market paperbacks? Think again.
This is the rack of “mass market” paperbacks that I see when I stand in the queue, every time IContinue Reading
The Creative Process & Publishing III – Meet the “Four Brothers Buksalesnikov”
In previous posts on this subject, I focused on finding a publisher, finding an agent and finding your voice asContinue Reading
The Creative Process: What makes a literary one-hit wonder?
There is a lot more to the phenomenon of literary one-hit wonders than you’d think. There are many reasons forContinue Reading
Award-winning novel Backstories Discussion of writing style Published books Review of literary fiction Review of previously published novel Review of science fiction Romances and Love Stories Video
Finnish Weird at its best – Troll, by Johanna Sinisalo
ABOUT TROLLS –There is a whole body of memes about trolls. There are cute troll dolls, like in the 2016Continue Reading
Backstories Children’s Literature Current events Discussion of writing style Published books Review of previously published novel
“The Little Prince” – The tricky business of fan fiction versus copyright, Part 4 of 4
Here is the last part in a series of four posts on the subject of fan fiction versus copyright rules.Continue Reading
Backstories Comic books Current events Discussion of author’s portfolio Discussion of current events Published books
The Unfinished “Tintin” – The tricky business of fan fiction versus copyright, Part 3 of 4
The court cases continue Update – May 4, 2021 The Hergé Foundation, known in French as Moulinsart, and formerly knownContinue Reading
Current events Discussion of author’s portfolio Discussion of current events List of similar books Published books
“The Aleph” – The tricky business of fan fiction versus copyright, Part 2 of 4
To continue the discussion on fan fiction versus copyright, here follows the case of the two “Alephs”, one by Jorge Luis BorgesContinue Reading
Books for Summer Current events Discussion of writing style Published books Review of literary fiction
Suffering and sublime beauty – The Famished Road, by Ben Okri
This novel, first published 1991, won Ben Okri the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. You might wonder what relevance aContinue Reading
References, inspirations and book titles
Inspiration has to come from somewhere To make a short story long: Borrowing or infringing? In 1947, Malcolm Lowry’s novelContinue Reading
Current events Discussion of author’s portfolio Non-fiction Published books Review of historical fiction Subjective non-fiction
Have you read People of the Deer? You should, especially now
Grand old man of Canadian literature dies Just last week I gave my copy of Farley Mowat’s Eastern Passage to a friendContinue Reading
100 Reviews and counting
Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy – coming up – will be the subject of the 100th book review I’ve written inContinue Reading
SEVEN CIRCUMSTANCES 