If I were ever to teach a class in basic storytelling, especially one in which the class and I discussed popular imaginative fiction, I might very well start off with this book as a perfect example of how to structure a story. The edition of the Walt Disney Cinderella story I mean… Continue reading
When I was a kid—10, 12 years old and later—I used to stay up late at night on Fridays and Saturdays and watch old movies. Monster movies hosted by Ghoulardi on channel 8 in Cleveland, for a while there, in the early sixties, but later, just about anything—film noir from… Continue reading
For the past 10 years, going back to 2003, at least, I’ve pitched ideas to agents, hoping to interest one of them in the commercial potential of one or another of my ideas, and the effort has come to nothing. I had literary representation decades ago, and what I wrote… Continue reading
Whenever I hit a rut in my writing and need to be reminded why I am at the keyboard, I pull out one or another story or novel by Leigh Brackett to get me back on track, to remind me why I wanted to learn how to tell stories in… Continue reading
Friends, the website has a great new look courtesy of my friend Mike Johnson, and I’m taking the new look seriously by promising to blog frequently and faithfully. Used to be that I’d blog maybe two or three times a year because I got it in my head that I… Continue reading
While having breakfast with my daughter, Lily, the other morning, I made note of a commercial that came on as we were watching Nickelodeon. (Nickelodeon is pretty much the only channel we do watch these days, and that’s not a bad thing. The writing on I Carly—now canceled, alas—and Victorious, on See Dad… Continue reading
I completed the following appreciation in January 2011 for a book of testimonials to be published in connection with honoring Glenn at the annual Robert E. Howard Days celebration in Cross Plains, Texas, in June 2011. That particular volume of tributes to Glenn did not materialize; therefore, this is the… Continue reading
Last summer, I got back the rights to 10 of the 18 paperback novels I saw published in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These 10 are copyrighted in my name and are about my original characters, so . . . they’re mine. (The other eight novels—seven of them coauthored… Continue reading
Here’s the thing: Jason Momoa is great as Conan. And the movie captures the heart and drive of Howard more often than it does not. When it does not, it’s because it slacks off into unoriginal, derivative sword-and-sorcery material that undercuts the movie’s own strengths. But it does get more… Continue reading
A book review by David C. Smith… A passage early in the short story “Mad Shadows,” the first of the six included in this new collection by Joe Bonadonna, illustrates why I like these stories so much and why Dorgo the Dowser is a sword-and-sorcery character who deserves your time… Continue reading
