March 2012

  • Audio Described Movies

    What is an audio described movie? An audio described movie is a movie with a separate sound track that includes a narrator who verbal describes important visual elements of the film. The narration is interspaced between the movie’s regular dialogue, to create as little disruption to the movie’s main sound track as possible. The audio… Continue reading

  • Why we like first-person plural … and why we don’t

    Writing a novel in first-person plural can’t be easy, but when an author nails it – like Jeffrey Eugenides did with The Virgin Suicides – it sticks with you. This narrative technique isn’t the “royal we” or a Greek chorus, but a collective voice that observes and is also part of the story. Next to… Continue reading

  • What we were listening to in 1962

    On the 50th anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair, we look back at that year’s popular books, music, movies and TV shows. This week: what we were listening to in 1962. I like to be in America! If we could travel back in time to a random Seattle living room circa 1962, chances are good we’d… Continue reading

  • Science Fiction Fridays: The past is never past

                                 “The past is obdurate.”                                                                 ― Stephen King I love a good time travel story. And I mean all sorts of time travel stories. I like the ones where people go back in time to change things in their own lives. I like the distant past stories of people attempting to fit in to… Continue reading

  • Crime: Mad Dogs and Estleman

    Advancing through my Alphabet of Crime, I pause at the E’s to share a couple of the best hardboiled mystery writers around: Loren Estleman and James Ellroy. The use of the term “hard-boiled” to describe fiction – borrowed from an early 20th-century expression for experienced tough guys – may date from February 17, 1929 when the New York Times… Continue reading