by mike | May 30, 2012 | Adventure fantasy, Books, California, Fantasy, Movies, Science Fiction, Sword & Sorcery, Writing |
In my last post I noted that Edgar Rice Burroughs was the single greatest source of inspiration for both my love of reading and my own writing career. With the recent re-release of the first book I ever wrote, The Master of Boranga—which had the Burroughs stamp all...
by mike | May 24, 2012 | Adventure fantasy, Books, Fantasy, Movies, Science Fiction, Sword & Planet, Writing |
In the 1980s I published a sword & sorcery novel titled, The Twentieth Son of Ornon (reissued earlier this year as The Sons of Ornon). It might have been my tenth or eleventh published book at the time; I’m not sure. More important was the dedication/author’s note...
by mike | May 21, 2012 | Books, Fantasy, Magical realism, Movies, Writing |
It began as a short story by Canadian author W.P. Kinsella in an anthology of baseball stories titled, Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa. Later on, Kinsella expanded the story into a novel called, simply, Shoeless Joe. Most all of us know it as Field of Dreams, the...
by mike | May 9, 2012 | Fantasy, Guilty Pleasures, Movies, Science Fiction, Sword & Planet, Sword & Sorcery |
In a previous post I mentioned that the “guilt” in guilty pleasures comes from worrying about what others might think about one’s tastes, maybe seeing you as a real lowbrow, or an eccentric. In the case of the 1983 sword & planet movie, Krull, that actually...
by mike | Apr 27, 2012 | Books, Fantasy, Horror, Sword & Planet, Sword & Sorcery, Writers' Retreat, Writing |
Middleburg, VA is a historic town located a short distance from Washington, DC. (Are any towns in Virginia NOT historic?) It has been there over 220 years—and no, I was not there for its founding. Among its 600 or so residents are quite a few writers, which made...
by mike | Apr 18, 2012 | Books, Fantasy, Horror, Nightmares, Research, Sword & Planet, Sword & Sorcery, Writing |
What’s the deal? A guy who writes horror, fantasy and other weird stuff thinking that creativity is a curse? To be honest—no, not the majority of the time. My brain is almost always swirling with new plots, unique characters, exotic settings and such, and for the most...
