Category: articles
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Rabid and Danse Macbre
Over break, I started Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus and I must say it’s one of the most brutal pieces of nonfiction to cross my desk. Wasik and Murphy headed up a research team for years, digging into the origins of the disease that took down Old Yeller. (Sorry to…
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Mosque Burning and Neighbor Love : The Other Side
On Monday, my local Joplin neighbors witnessed a mosque burning to the ground. Authorities suspect foul play. This is the second time the mosque has been on fire this summer, the first happened on — you guessed it — July 4th. The Joplin Globe featured a picture of Imam Lahmuddin weeping, adding in a sidebar…
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Partnerships
Hey gang, Made a quick update to the Published Works and Projects page by adding the logos of former and current partnerships:
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Thanks AND A CHALLENGE to International Guests
For the record, I’ve been humbled by how many of you from outside the U.S. interact on here: Which is why I scheduled this one to post at three in the morning my time, what Ray Bradbury called “no souls hour” in Something Wicked This Way Comes. No, I’m not awake–I’m probably dreaming of being an Animorph or…
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A Near-Death Experience for Poetry
Our nation’s in crisis and doesn’t even know it. “What are you talking about, Lance, of course they–” Not like that. The moment you ruin funding for the arts, the moment music becomes an elective, the moment you have more copywriters than poets, you start down into absurdity. The poets are always the first to…
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Free Lance Friday & Discounts!
Freelance ain’t free [except when it is]. It’s that time again–time for you shy or procrastinating or wary people to send your stories, poems, articles, research papers, opening novel chapters, book proposals, etc. and I send them back to you, line-edited, critiqued or written free of charge. It’s only this Friday, and it’s first-come-first-serve. Two…
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Pigs, Poems & Paradise
I’ve Doberman (one of you Literators) to thank for the sudden outburst in poetics. Forgive me if I don’t try and publish poetry these days–the time involved pays significantly less than stories, articles and freelance editing. I like to think there’s value in the mere act of crafting poems. And occasionally sharing them. Anyways, awhile…
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Twoem: A Twitter Poem
In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve taken a week to focus on poetry, to give her the limelight and to beg you not to ignore posts (by anyone, not just me) simply because they have #poetry at the end. In order to emphasize how important it is for you to search out “poetry” in the tag clouds, category…
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The Birds in the Floo
Last year, I rescued three jackdaws from out of my chimney’s vault One of their brothers’ body lay chilled in the midst of ash I carried them in gloved hands upstairs and out the window to the roof above my laundry room, gable for the world away from indoors I set birds three upon the…
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Sitting at the feet of : a Fashion Photographer (2 of 2)
photo courtesy 9art Photography Continued from last week’s Ask the Experts… “Two weeks later this kid came in and it looked like she’d tried to gouge her arm out with a broken pop bottle and I said, ‘My God, did you do that to yourself?’ And she said, ‘yes, I did.’ And I said, ‘Are…
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Bad Thinking: “Wait Until You Have Something to Say”
There’s a rotten thought running around lecture halls, councils and writing groups these days. That idea goes like this: “You’ve nothing to say when you’re young. Wait until you’ve lived a little, then you’ll have something to say.” People tell themselves this while staring into the mirror or preach this to others all the time. I…
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Sitting at the feet of : a Fashion Photographer (1 of 2)
photo courtesy 9art Photography Thirty years ago, Brian DeMint went to Missouri Southern for art—the worst art degree he could have earned at the time. Only one of his teachers, in his opinion, was a true artist–Darrel Dishman. In spite of Darrel’s watercoloring, Brian quit and went to work for Empire for thirty-three years. “What…