Today at the dog park, one of the topics discussed by us “8:30 regulars” included high school graduations. It is, after all, that time of year, for mortarboards and diplomas and college visits and looking forward. Some of the folks at the park have kids who are graduating in a few weeks, or next year; [….]
In last week’s 2nd Annual NerdCon: Stories convention, held at the Minneapolis Convention Center, I attended a panel discussion entitled “Sotto Voce: Finding Your Voice”. Many of the panelists talked about staying true to yourself, searching for your true voice, and the difficulty that sometimes arises when you find yourself defaulting to a voice that [….]
My daughter was looking over the syllabus from a college English class that she had just started, and she was distraught over the thought of having to make an in-class critique of another student’s writing. “I’m just not good at that sort of thing!” she despaired. I tried to allay her concerns by pointing out [….]
The 2016 World Science Fiction convention was held in Kansas City, Missouri this weekend during MidAmeriCon II, and was highlighted by the announcement of the winners of the 2016 Hugo Awards. The Hugo Awards are one of the most prestigious awards for fantasy, speculative and science fiction works, and winning a Hugo is quite the [….]
Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words, words, words. ~William Shakespeare Although it can certainly be argued to the contrary, it seems that humans are the only creatures who use spoken language as opposed to creatures that “merely” communicate. And although human language has existed for ages, written language has been around for only 4,000 years [….]
I am an extremely lucky person. At times when I am feeling particularly magnanimous, I would even say that I am blessed. I live in an existence where I am surrounded by books. I own books, I can download books electronically, I have a library nearby where I can not only check out books but [….]
Did you like the weird and provocative British television series Black Mirror? (Of course you did!) Do you adore Neil Gaiman? (Of course you do!) Then you are going to be totally stoked to learn that four of Neil Gaiman’s stories are going to adapted for television, for real! (The news broke back in October, [….]
A Brief Look at Father Memoirs Stories that center on fathers have a distinct place in the memoir genre. For better or worse, fathers hold a place that intersects with the world and experience in a way far different from that of a mother’s. As in Jung’s archetypes, fathers are symbols of worldliness and action, [….]
We humans are so divergent in who we are, how we react and respond, in how our minds work and our ideas play out. It’s glorious. I’m not talking ideologies or dogma or beliefs or rationalizations. That’s not quite as glorious. I’m talking about how we relate to our private selves, and to others around [….]
