Category: fantasy
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Wisconsin’s American Zoo (WAZoo) Invites you to pet the meese
1 Tuesday I get a call from Boss to come down to his temporary office at my earliest convenience. Which means immediately. Boss’s office is behind Meese Trecks. It’s called this because Boss says the plural of Moose is Meese. So that’s that. The two Meese are finicky and prone to violence. By finicky I…
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Green Witch
Plants were powerful vessels. Even the grass in the ground was green with unspoken vitality, woven into their fibers by the delicate hands of mother nature. Admiring the plants in the room, I murmured their incantations on the tip of my tongue, teasing the potency of the spells that rested in their roots. The air…
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The Invaluable Nature of an Arts Education
As children, we draw pictures to tell stories. The scribbles, lines, and outside-the-line coloring seem merely arbitrary; a dog next to a house with a tree, a stick figure creation, or the classic unproportional family portrait. We come home from school covered in marker ink and with heads full of stories. We sing songs to…
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Modern Rhetorical Metacriticism
There are several methodologies available for use in the field of modern rhetorical criticism. Using each form and comparing their insights and conclusions against each other will garner an analysis on which is more applicable to the selected artifact chosen for study. This is a criticism on the utility and necessity of the critical styles…
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Generational Culture — films, novels, and the rest
My friend Chad wrote a post about generational culture in hopes to pick a film for every generation. As we texted back and forth with our friend Doug, we realized that a single film might not define a generation so much as a bank of films or even a bank of cultural touchstones. So after…
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Have We Hit Peak Superhero Cinema?
Today for Myths, Legends, Folklore and Tall Tales, I’m posting a recording of a panel I joined for Heliosphere 2019 that asked the question Have We Reached Peak Superhero Cinema? The panel featured the fabulous Charlie Jane Anders, Kathleen O’Shea David, and Mercy Van Vlack. All of them asked engaging, heartfelt questions from a combined…
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Magic Reveals the Author’s Metaphysics
Today for BOTH Legends, Folklore and Tall Tales, I’m posting a recording of a panel I was on at Heliosphere 2019 on how Magic Reveals the Metaphysics of the Author within fantasy and science fiction novels. The panel featured Carole Ann Moleti, Alex Shvartsman, Ken Altabef, Lorrain Schein. We ventured into philosophy, religion, politics, and…
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Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch is as Bad as Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone Reboot Will Be
The highly anticipated, recently released full-length interactive film from the makers of the provocative and disturbing British sci-fi television series Black Mirror, Bandersnatch, is a failure in many ways. It’s a confusingly, convolutedly, frustratingly, and unnecessarily complicated plot wrapped up in an innovative but disappointing format, where viewers have to make random and only occasionally…
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Who, if I cried out—
Greetings, Lanciverse! I’m Merrill Lee Girardeau, and I’m a writer. [Writers Anonymous, together: Hi, Merrill Lee.] Lance asked me to write about poetry for the site, and here I am. Psyched to be here and connect with y’all. These posts will document my attempts to stick to a writing regimen this year. The plan…
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Frankenstein: The Intersection of Literature and Science — with Kathleen Ann Goonan at the World Fantasy Convention
On Thursday I gave a talk on Frankenstein: The Intersection of Literature and Science here at the World Fantasy Convention with the fabulous and brilliant Kathy Goonan, (unfortunately Ted Chaing’s train delayed him). Kathy offered a deep drink from her vast experience and knowledge and I think you’ll find it instructive as we continue reading…
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Book Club Suggestions : How To Run One
Often people will search for book club suggestions online looking for lists of suggested reading, but really what they’re looking for is guidance for how to run a book club well. This particular post will offer book club suggestions in the realm of how to talk through the books you’ve read: specifically what do they mean?…
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Sitting at the Feet of the Hogwarts Headmaster
Sgt. John Granger of the United States Marine Corps (stationed in Japan) was proud to say that he was perfectly normal, thank you very much. He was the last person you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious — especially invocational magic — and the last person you would expect to become a Hogwarts headmaster…