Interview: Jefferson Brassfield, screenwriter of Westender

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Alex in fantasy literature, interview, movies, writers, writing | Leave a comment

The DVD cover.

I took a chance on the 2003 movie Westender, based on the DVD cover image to the left. I love fantasy films, and this one seemed unusually somber and even (dare I hope?) thoughtful, instead of the usually mayhem and scantily-clad girls (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

It turned out to be just that: a meditation on redemption, shot in the forests of Oregon with a minimal cast and a lot of creative energy. It also backed up something I’ve always believed: that low-budget genre movies aren’t terrible because their budgets are low, but because the people involved aren’t very talented. Here’s a low-budget film starring actors you’ve probably never heard of, shot essentially in the filmmakers’ back yards, and it’s just shy of brilliant.

I contacted screenwriter Jefferson Brassfield, and he was kind enough to answer some questions about this long-ago project.

Me: There’s a melancholy, world-weary quality to both Asbrey, the hero of Westender, and the overall story. You were all pretty young when you made the film, so where did that come from?

Jefferson Brassfield: For me, I think that pathos came from the divorce of my parents in my teens and then my first real romantic heartbreak my freshman year of college. I tend to approach feelings with an Apollonian reverie more than a Dionysian embrace, and did so especially when I was younger. Those two world-shattering-to-me events were very difficult to process and express in my logical fashion, so they got internalized, compartmentalized. Keeping issues with that much personal gravitas unaddressed and unresolved will slowly grind a person down, infect them with a melancholy and world-weariness they may not understand. From that place, it was easy to find a voice in Asbrey, a soldier who solves problems with violence. Burden him with a broken heart; a problem that no amount of violence will resolve, and he is helpless. He will slowly disintegrate. We meet him on that decline.

I’ve found that the trick in fantasy dialogue is finding to the balance between period distance and emotional immediacy. Also, it’s hard to suggest the speech of another time without sounding silly. Did you have any issues with that? How much of the dialogue in the film is directly from your script?

Most all of the dialogue is directly from the script, and I’m about 40% unashamed of that. For better or for worse, there’s not that much dialogue in the film. We knew that we weren’t dealing with a lot of serious, committed actors, so we didn’t want to slather up the dialogue with incongruous accents and purple prose. If we went too far trying to be clever with period vernacular, we ran the risk of not being able to pull it off. If we went too contemporary, it might seem insincere. Since it was an ambiguous fantasy setting, we tried to straddle the line between those two without annihilating suspension of disbelief. It was definitely an issue we were conscious of. Some scenes Blake Stanton (Asbrey) would feel right away that what he was saying seemed wrong and we’d work to fix it, but most of the time we just went with the script and hoped it would all come together in the editing room. A few scenes were successful in that, a few scenes weren’t.

How much of the visual symbolism was written, and how much discovered on set?

Most of the visual symbolism was conceived prior to filming. Westender was originally intended to be a long-form short film, and its structure grew out of two things: the locations in the Oregon wilderness we so loved and wanted to shoot, and the concept Brock (the director) had for the character of Asbrey. Blake and these gorgeous natural visuals were going to have to carry the film. Once I started working through the story itself, and once our short film became a feature, more appropriate symbolism emerged in the writing and brainstorming, and most all of it ended up in the movie. I’m trying to think of anything in this regard that arose in the moment or was realized in the editing room, but nothing is coming to mind. That stuff was all very conscious.

How much of a consideration was the budget to the writing process?

Huge. As I mentioned before, Westender was originally meant to be a lengthy short film, so we knew we were going to have almost nothing to work with, budget-wise. The locations, the story, the film-making, and Blake’s performance were all we had. We couldn’t afford anything more than that. No crowds, no stunts, no elaborate shots, no fancy sets, no visual effects, tiny cast, and tiny crew that were both willing to eschew a warm soft bed and personal hygiene for a week or two with no pay. A few scenes were shot on our shoe-string budget and then production halted for for a series of forces majeure I can’t specifically recall. The footage was good. Brock pushed and fund-raised to make it into a bigger project. Once he had secured a healthier budget, we could make it into a feature with a few more bells and whistles, but we still had to cut every corner we knew we’d be turning. Not a heck of a lot was added into the script with our new budget, we just upgraded what was already there and what we already wanted to do. We could increase the amount of people to not pay.

How has the film affected your subsequent writing career?

We developed a Westender TV series with Gavin and Greg O’Connor, then it germinated at Paramount for a while, but it never happened. I really like the pilot script. I’ve written a few other screenplays, but nothing produced. I certainly feel like I’ve learned a lot from writing Westender. It’s a flawed film, but it’s the film we set out to make. I don’t really have a writing career, so I reckon it hasn’t affected my subsequent writing career too massively.

Thanks to Jefferson Brassfield for taking the time to talk with me. Westender is available on DVD, and through Netflix.

The wacky comradeship of the Beats

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Alex in Jack Kerouac, writers, writing, writing advice | 1 Comment

“New York gets god-awful cold in the winter but there’s a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets.”–Jack Kerouac

I love reading about the Beat Generation. This is not the same, I hasten to add, as actually reading the work of the Beats, which can be hard going for someone used to more traditional forms of writing. But the idea of them–that there was once this group of friends who, through their individual and collected works, managed to change the literary world, and maybe the actual world–fascinates me. I’ve just finished Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, and have begun The Typewriter is Holy: The Complete, Uncensored History of the Beat Generation. And later this year, the long-awaited film adaptation of the definitive Beat novel, On the Road, comes out.

So what appeals to me about these men and women who wrote like “slob[s] running a temperature,” according to the Hudson Review? Why do I envy a group Charles Poore in the New York Times referred to as “a sideshow of freaks”?

Clockwise from left: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Lafcadio Orlovsky, and Gregory Corso in 1956.

Like most writers, I’m a loner. I can’t tell whether it’s because of something in my personality or the world at large, but at this point it’s habitual. I imagine most writers are like that, since writing by its nature is a lone, solitary activity. I don’t mean I’m antisocial, or at least I hope I’m not. I try to be accessible and friendly. But the things that drive me, that are important to me and that guide my thinking…those things I keep to myself, for a simple and ironic reason: they’re almost impossible to convey in words.

The original group at the core of the Beats found a way around that, though. They formed a network of friendships and other relationships, with poet Allen Ginsberg at the center of the web. They shared living quarters, adventures, and romantic partners, all with a raw-nerved intensity. Sure, I recognize that youth was a big part of it, as was the particular historical moment and heavy substance abuse. And there’s no avoiding the narcissistic selfishness that kept them from more traditional connections (the only thing worse than being the romantic partner of a Beat was being the child of one). But even with all that, I envy their sense that here were people who understood, who got both the joy of being a writer trying to do something significant, and the sheer tedium of it. They got it.

Don’t get me wrong, I have good friends who are also good writers. But we e-mail and post on Facebook, instead of sitting up all night in San Francisco coffee shops. We see each other at comfortable conventions, instead of flophouses or jails. Most of us are concerned with living healthy, so we don’t chain-smoke or do hard drugs. Many of us have partners, and children, that we treasure. We’re products of our era just as the Beats were of theirs. And perhaps if I were 29 instead of 49, these connections would have the same effect on me as those espresso arguments had on the original Beats.

But I’m not. I’m a middle-aged guy with two kids, a wife and a mortgage, trying to make it in a world where screaming has replaced talking. I don’t have the option of dropping out the way the Beats did, or of dictating my own terms. And even if I did, I’m not sure I would; a number of the Beats ended up tragically, the result of an inability to handle substances and/or success. Their moment was fleeting, even for them.

Still, once they were the network of the cool: Ginsberg to Kerouac to Cassady to Corso to Burroughs, and so on and so forth. People who understood what the others were experiencing, what the struggle to create something meaningful was like. People who got it, man.

Tropes on the ropes: things I avoid

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Alex in Horror Films, writing | 12 Comments

How I often feel about today's horror movies.

When I was a kid–and my kid-hood stretched well into my twenties–nothing in the horror genre bothered me. Some things made deep impressions, of course (the climax of Night of the Living Dead, for example, introduced me to nihilism), but it didn’t trouble me or give me the kind of nightmares that make you swear off things. And I was up for anything, from the various Friday the 13th slasher murders to the lascivious decapitated head in Re-Animator. My absolute favorite horror film, Dawn of the Dead, remains one of the genre’s goriest even now.

I’m not sure when that changed, or why. I only know it has. There are simply some emotions I have no desire to feel, especially in my “entertainment.” I won’t read or watch anything that I know includes them, and I’ll turn something off or close the book if I encounter them with no warning. And I’m wondering if it’s just me getting wimpy in my middle age, or if other people also experience this.

Not all of them are inexplicable, though. A big one for me is anything that focuses on the terror, pain or deaths of children. The source of that is easy, and I can hear it banging around downstairs as I write this. I’ve heard from other parents that that they’ve experienced something similar, so I know I’m not alone. It’s a visceral, emotional response that I simply don’t want to feel. I still get queasy thinking about a scene from American Horror Story where a doctor was sewing pieces of his dead baby together. If it makes me a wimp, then, I can accept that.

This year's model of the smug, petty villain.

A much more personal thing is the handsome, smug, petty villain. This one is new, and has manifested only in the past ten years or so. Watching Downton Abbey with my wife, I was totally unprepared for my reaction to Thomas the scheming footman: absolute, full-on rage. And while I understand that I’m putting his face on people from my own past, and that the rage is really directed at them and not the character, it doesn’t help me “enjoy” the show. In fact, it sort of makes me dread watching it, much as I’d dread running into those same people. It’s also kept me from enjoying many ostensible comedies, which often feature this sort of character as the main bad guy.

Getting back to horror, I also don’t enjoy lingering shots of people in pain, which means I avoid the whole “torture porn” subgenre. The horror films I grew up with may have featured high body counts and outlandishly gory death scenes, but they didn’t include lingering, almost pornographic shots of people (usually women) in agony. This started, in my view, with Wes Craven, whose cleverness goes hand-in-hand with his sadism, and became a genre of its own with the first Saw. Whenever I see one of these films advertised, I picture a bunch of twenty-something young men in a film editing room, drinking, farting and laughing hysterically at their own cleverness. It’s the frat boy approach to horror, and as an adult, I have no interest in exposing myself to any more of it. (Whether horror even counts as an “adult” genre is something I’ve long pondered, and still haven’t resolved for myself.) I’m also reminded of something Mike Nelson wrote:

“[It] makes one wonder how, with movie making being such a formidable task, requiring so much drive and vision, how could an individual choose to put so much ugliness on screen?”

I also don’t enjoy creators who get readers/audiences emotionally attached to characters they plan to capriciously kill off. It’s one reason I’ve avoided, and plan to continue avoiding, A Game of Thrones. It’s not really a criticism, since this doesn’t bother most readers and viewers, and of course drama must be able to include death. But I’ve lost enough real people in my life that I simply get no pleasure from losing fictional ones due to a creator’s arbitrary decisions. And honestly, I feel this sort of thing violates an unspoken contract between creator and consumer. Real life is capricious enough; one reason I like fiction is the security of knowing that events will make sense. When they don’t, at some level I feel betrayed.

I get less visceral reactions to some of the trite and obvious (not to mention unrealistic) tropes in more general forms of entertainment: the fat schlubby guy who wins the hot girl, sex scenes where the actress keeps her bra on, the whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl concept, the idea that immaturity is something to be treasured, and so forth. Part of it is simply that, as a writer, I recognize how false these concepts are. The rest is weariness: have you got nothing new?

And now, I’m asking you. What tropes/plot points/thematic elements do you deliberately avoid, and why? Leave a comment and you’ll be entered to win a copy of the Burn Me Deadly paperback, which includes a sneak peek of Wake of the Bloody Angel. Deadline is midnight, April 2.

Interview: Red Reaper director Kristen Stewart

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Alex in interview, movies | 5 Comments

The Legend of the Red Reaper is a project I’ve been following for a while. I first saw the temp trailer a couple of years ago, and was impressed by the fact that the actress playing the main character, Tara Cardinal, looked not like some superpowered pixie waif but like a woman who could legitimately kick ass:

Since at the time I was planning to introduce a tough female sidekick for Eddie LaCrosse, this got my attention. (You can see my creation, Jane Argo, this summer when Wake of the Bloody Angel hits stores.)

Now, with Legend of the Red Reaper near completion, director/screenwriter Kristen “Stew” Stewart (not the Twilight actress, it should be clear) was kind enough to answer some questions about the film, and about being a woman creating an action heroine.

Actress Tara Cardinal as the Red Reaper.

Me: You created the Red Reaper character for actress Tara Cardinal. What did you want this character to say and represent?

Kristen: I wanted to create a superhero that happened to be female. When we first starting pitching the concept of the “Red Reaper” to production companies, they immediately thought of a man playing the role. I wrote her like a man. I’m constantly irritated by gender stereotypes–they just don’t apply in the superhero world.

Aella, aka the Red Reaper, is a dark hero. She’s tortured by her desire to follow her dreams and her duty to the people of her realm. She’s very much an outcast. We see throughout the course of the film that she’s special–and most people don’t like “special.” They’re afraid of her, hate her, torture her, and she responds by becoming harder, stronger and calloused. In the end she chooses duty over love and pledges her life to help the people who still fail to understand, or even like her.

Ironically, I think everyone can relate to feeling isolated. I wanted to create a character that could see past her own pain and use her special abilities to make the world a better place, even for the people who hate her.

What aspect of writing the script was most difficult: creating the background of the world, the actual story or the characters? And how did you address that difficulty?

My process was entirely backwards, and I can’t take full credit for the writing. I was helped by MANY people along the way, and while I may not mention them by name, I’m very grateful for their guidance. The original screenplay was written by Kim Pritekel (based on my concepts), and had a simple, easy to follow plot about some Reapers, some humans, and the demons out to destroy them. Through a series of unfortunate events after shooting a little more than half the film, production was delayed for two and half years. During that time the original producers, director, and Kim had all moved on to other projects, and the money was tight. I stepped back in with the extremely limited resources and re-wrote the script with the parameters of only being able to use certain available cast, location, and equipment. It was like playing Sudoku, but much harder. So, really, I only created SOME of the characters, and then added some quirks and twists to the other existing ones. The created world became a product of necessity, and thus created itself. I’m hard pressed to take credit for that.

My writing process is a wonderful experience for me. I sit, or shower, or walk, and imagine the world and the characters, and once I know what they want, I let them show me how they’re going to get it. I don’t feel like I wrote Legend of the Red Reaper, I feel like it wrote itself, and I just transcribed it. I have no formal training in screenwriting, so for me, the hardest part was learning the formatting. After that the film re-wrote itself.

Women-created action heroines are common in prose genres such as urban fantasy, but not so much in the movies, where they’re usually created and developed by male writers. What did you find most difficult about your conception of the character and her story, to get across to the men who worked on it with you?

Oh, now THERE’S a great question! In the original version of the script, which had a lot of input from a male exec, the Red Reaper cried throughout the film. She cried because she loved her boyfriend, she cried when she didn’t get what she wanted, she whined at her father, she pouted and stamped her little feet. It drove me NUTS. The average woman isn’t that whiny; why is this superhero acting like a spoiled brat? Better still, in many of the battle sequences she required the aide of a man–usually not even a Reaper man, but a human man. Even at the end, the Red Reaper is defeated by the Big Bad and her human boyfriend comes in and saves her. It’s like Lois Lane taking out Lex Luther! It’s asinine. Asinine or not, it’s really not all that uncommon when it comes to female characters in general.

It irritated me so much that I went as far in the opposite direction from that as I could. I made the Red Reaper fairly stoic. You’ll find she doesn’t have a lot of dialogue throughout the film: she’s a man of action, not words. There is a love story, but her role is the more masculine one. The prince is in love with her, but she refuses to say it back to him. She’s arrogant, violent, brash. She’s confrontational, she talks with her mouth full and she would never hit a woman. She’s gallant and brave, chivalrous even. I never once thought of her as a woman when I re-wrote the script. Only as a hero.

I was lucky that during the last round of filming I had a great crew: my DP, my first AD, my head of Make up and SFX and my associate producers were all men very comfortable and secure with themselves. They never once questioned my leadership, my vision or my dedication to the film, and never once treated me or the character like a woman.

Thanks to Stew for answering my questions. You can keep up with Legend of the Red Reaper at the movie’s Facebook page.

Guest blog: Alyxandra Harvey

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Alex in guest blog, writers, writing, writing advice | 1 Comment

Alyxandra Harvey

Alyxandra Harvey is the author of numerous YA paranormal books, including the ongoing Drake Chronicles. Here she talks about some aspects of her chosen genre and how she relates to her fans.

*****

First, an apology.

I’m sorry if I’ve become homework.

And I’m sorry if part of me finds that pretty freaking cool.

I get many requests for help on school assignments. Unfortunately, I’m rarely able to answer them— not because I don’t want to, but because when it’s school project season, I get handfuls of those requests every day. Enough so that I’ve added a section on my website with the kind of information students might need. I write about vampires, Victorian ghosts, Fae, zombies… that’s a lot of ground to cover!

Like all writers, I get asked about the craft.

The bad news is: there’s no secret handshake.

The good news is: there’s no secret handshake

So, my advice is pretty basic: write. Sounds simple, right? But a lot of people want to be writers— they don’t necessarily want to write. If you love to write, you’re halfway there already.

Keep at it. Like anything else, you need practice. Learn to finish something: a poem, a short story, a novella. The fire at the beginning of a story can flicker once you’re a few chapters in. You can get distracted by shiny idea #15, and that one over there., and wait is that Dean Winchester? Mr. Darcy? (okay those last 2 might just be me!)… so learn to finish. It’s a skill like any other.

And because I write vampire YA, I often get asked about Twilight, vampires, and cute boys. When I went on book tour in the UK, I was asked at least once every day if I know Justin Bieber (this is because I’m Canadian. And the answer is no, just in case you’re wondering). I also get asked what kind of supernatural creature I would be, which is so much more interesting than your average interview or essay question. And the answer: I would like to be a time traveler. I’m not sure if that counts as a supernatural creature but I’d just really like to visit different periods in history (Regency, Victorian, Ancient Egypt, Iron Age Celts, Middle Ages…) but still come home for my hot shower and ice cream. A girl has to have her priorities, after all.

The really wonderful thing about writing YA fiction is that every so often, I get to travel around visiting libraries and schools. I get to chat with anywhere from 20 to 300 students, all of whom have brilliant insights that would put university lit profs to shame. I am consistently impressed by the calibre of those questions. They make me think about my characters, the reading culture, and writing in general. You are such a brighter star than you think you are. Don’t be afraid to ask those questions.

Blood Moon

Another reason I love all those questions? I basically spend my days alone talking to my imaginary friends…and then suddenly on book tour I have to think of interesting things to say to people who actually talk back! So those questions? They save my poor shy writer’s brain.

And I usually have questions of my own to ask…Principally, if you could live in a book, which one would it be? (So far, Harry Potter is winning). Discuss.

Oops. That sounds like more homework.

*****

Alyxandra Harvey’s books include Haunting Violet, Stolen Away, and most recently, Blood Moon. You can find out more at her website here.

Blogging, bullying, and the big pile-on

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Alex in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

What most bloggers are like on the inside?

In this blog post at Why Advertising Sucks, the author talks–in angry, pithy language–about how quick people on the internet are to criticize. He writes, “People behind a computer are your judges, not knowing you, not knowing your life.” That’s true, and it’s not news. But it got me thinking about the part of it that bothers me the most.

Anyone who’s ever been a kid knows about the “pile on,” when everyone lines up behind the loudest taunting voice and joins in the derision. It’s a subset of bullying, noticeable for the presence in the mocking crowd of previous bullying victims. After all, what better place to hide from subsequent abuse than behind the bully?

Usually those piled-on are the odd ones: the geeks, the nerds, the ones with asthma or thick glasses, the ones clutching a book instead of a football. More cruelly, it could be those with specific physical or mental conditions that make them different. But whoever it is, we sympathize with them, right? No matter who was being picked on, we’d never do that ourselves, would we? We’re better than that…aren’t we?

Many bloggers, like me, identify with the political left, and some frequently take to the keyboard to berate the right’s latest perceived misstep. These bloggers are preaching to the choir just as much as Michelle Malkin or Matt Drudge, setting themselves up as the standard-bearers for causes with which they know their followers already sympathize. Their intentions may be good, even noble; but in practice they’re the loudmouths, pointing and laughing.

And this leads directly to the pile-on, as these fans, followers and commentators rush to join the bloggers in being the most offended by whatever (or whoever) the topic at hand might be. Often, the people most offended have, as they say, no dog in the fight. They simply enjoy being part of the pile. The author of the above blog post calls them, “mean, selfish, egocentric douches who decided that the hipster thing to do was criticize the shit out of people.”

And it’s bullying. The only difference? People are running to the pile from the left instead of the right. And if you’ve ever been bullied, ever been piled on, you should really stop a moment and think about what you’re doing, and what it says about you. Forget who the target is, and look at yourself. Is this who you want to be? Are you really no better than this?

The blogosphere in general is about as mature as the average middle school recess. When people post about current events, it’s often with the same emotional motivation as that playground chest-poke that leads to a fight. It doesn’t matter if the bloggers are parents or grandparents; anyone of any age can be immature. I know I can. But I try very hard not to be. And more to the point, I’ve been piled-on in real life. I have no desire to do it to anyone else, no matter what the provocation, because that reduces me to the level of a bully.

So while I certainly share the outrage at recent statements and events, and support those who promote positive change as opposed to just criticizing, I have no interest in joining the pile-on. I’ve got too many memories of being the kid at the bottom of the pile.

Guest blog: the resurrection of Wonder Woman

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Alex in comic books, writers, writing | 5 Comments

Ever since working on an essay for a subsequently-cancelled SmartPop collection, I’ve been fascinated with attitudes toward Wonder Woman. My friend Elizabeth Keathley, a much more well-read and long-term fan, was kind enough to write about the character’s recent history.

*****

I have two daughters, ages three and five. When I was around their ages, I wore through more than one set of Wonder Woman underoos, and I don’t just mean that I outgrew them. I was forbidden to play with string after cutting off one of my mom’s gold-tone window shade pulls for lasso action. I once got in a kindergarten shoving match on the bus because my neighbor Michael Garber tried to tell me The Dukes of Hazzard could beat Wonder Woman. When I was 26, I emailed another childhood friend, Virgil Pool, with a scan of a page from Wonder Woman 175, where she won a fight against Superman. The text of my email? “You owe me a billion dollars from a bet in 3rd grade”.

Virgil is now an executive with the South’s largest banking firm. I work in Digital Asset Management for a large multinational concern. We keep in touch, because once a love of comics really takes root with a child, it never fully disappears. When we do see each other, we catch up on comics gossip, and of course last year that meant talking about the digital re-launch of DC comics.

Periodically DC and Marvel – the two big superhero houses of American comics – “relaunch” their titles, starting the cover numbering over at 1, and changing things up. Teams get shuffled, costumes and hairstyles updated, personalities shift. These relaunches are ostensibly done to give new readers an entry point to the long and convoluted storylines of the comic book world. It is also true that any book with the number one on it tends to sell a little bit better than average, and that really counts today, when the number of regular comic book readers is estimated to be somewhere around just 250,000 individuals.

When there are more choices than DC and Marvel, the writing and art must be top-notch to keep up readership. Given this tough market, in the past decade Marvel decided to invest in great writers, and for the first time did things that made me want to read Daredevil and even take a peek back at the X-men. DC went a different route. They gave their head editor position to Dan Didio, and he decided that the problem with DC comics was that they weren’t catering enough to young men. He wanted to make DC edgier and sexier. He did, and women fans (including myself) fell away in droves, some going so far as to start up protest sites like Girl-Wonder.org. Why protest a shift in comic book editorial policy? You can read more about that over on Girl Wonder, but basically Didio decided that appealing to younger men meant a rape storyline, some art many consider to be torture porn, and the death or demotion of most of the main female heroines of the DC universe.

So another DC comics relaunch, this time with a digital component focused on the iPad market, excited me. At last, I thought, Time/Warner is going to lay down the profit law on DC comics. The animated TV series have audiences in the millions, and remain so popular that Cartoon Network plans to soon launch a new programming block around DC comics characters. I had hoped – as had many others with children, I like to think – that the digital relaunch would align the comic book Wonder Woman and Supergirl with the cartoon Wonder Woman and Supergirl.

Alas, under Dan Didio’s editorial vision, the new Supergirl comes with crotch snaps.

I would like for my daughters to learn to love reading comics. I have given them copies of Little Lit and reprints of Uncle Scrooge and copies of Asterix that my husband picked up in Europe as a child. My oldest picked up Mouse Guard from our shelf and read it on her own, along with a little of Bone. Until recently I had settled on the fact that while my daughters will learn to love comics, it won’t be the superhero comics that I read as a child. I was a little sad that Supergirl and Wonder Woman were destined to be second-string cartoon characters to them.

I was surprised when my friend Elle excitedly emailed a recommendation that I read the first four issues of the new run of Wonder Woman. The new run written by Brian Azzarello calls back to the work of Greg Rucka in 2003 by re-instituting a Greek Gods storyline. While Rucka’s quest-for-father storyline centered on Cassie – Wonder Girl – Azzarello puts Diana square in the middle of the Joseph Campbell cliché. The art by Cliff Chang gives us lots of close-ups, but thankfully gone is the cheesecake soft-core porn that sometimes made me embarrassed to buy the title in the past. There’s still plenty of comic-book violence, and even a make-out scene in issue three, but I wouldn’t have a problem handing these comics to a ten-year-old girl to read.

I will continue to borrow Wonder Woman issues from my friends for now, swapping them for volumes from the library of graphic novels I’ve built up since the fall of 2004. If Wonder Woman continues to be a readable, fun book, I might just go back to buying monthly issues again – this time on the iPad. If the story stays well written – and doesn’t echo much of the Jill Presto arc of Lucifer – maybe one day I’ll even share the files with my daughters. I still think that the cartoon versions of the DCU characters are better written and produced right now, but when you’re a Wonder Woman fan, you take what you can get – and just pray the artist remembers to cover Wonder Woman’s crotch.

*****

Elizabeth Ferguson Keathley has been reading comics since she could read, and engaging publicly about them since a fight in third grade. She has appeared as the feminist guest speaker on a couple of podcasts
over at Fortress of Baileytude, but mostly specializes in showing up at DragonCon panels and asking questions. In her professional life, Elizabeth works with Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems, and is chair of the DAM Foundation HR & Talent committee. Elizabeth swore off single-issue comics six years ago and instead has too many shelves of graphic novels.

*****

Adele Kirby: http://www.adelekirby.com/

Natasha Bloom: http://www.natashamakeup.com/

International Eddie

Posted on March 4, 2012 by Alex in Eddie LaCrosse, Sword-Edged Blonde | 1 Comment

Here’s the German cover art for The Sword-Edged Blonde; the title translates as The King’s Sword, which is a reasonably accurate alternate title (and definitely looks cool in German). Available in Germany April 9!

This actually does look a lot like I envisioned the younger Eddie from the flashback scenes. And here’s an exclusive tidbit you’ll only find here: Young Eddie will also appear in the fifth novel, so far untitled, so far only about half written, but coming out in 2013.

Das Schwert des Koenigs

Burn Me Deadly paperback, Wake of the Bloody Angel teaser

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Alex in Burn Me Deadly, Eddie LaCrosse, paperback | 1 Comment

Today the mass market paperback of Burn Me Deadly, with new cover art by Larry Rostant, hits stores. It also includes the first three chapters (how’s THAT for a tease?) of my next Eddie LaCrosse book, Wake of the Bloody Angel. And to celebrate that, here’s the teaser trailer for the new book, to give you a little taste of what’s in store this summer.

new in paperback!

Coming this summer!

5 Things Not to Say to a Writer’s Wife

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Alex in family, writers, writing, writing advice | 10 Comments

Valette with the C-in-C and the Squirrel Boy

I’ve written many times, on this and other blogs, about the challenges of being a full-time writer and stay-at-home parent. I’ve alluded to the difficulty of living with someone like me, but of course I can never truly know what it’s like. My wife, however, knows exactly what living with a writer is like, and in this post she talks about it. Thanks to Valette Piper-Bledsoe for writing the following.

*****

I’ve read plaintive blog posts about the writer’s life–the struggle to find productive creative time, the conflicting demands of family and work, the siren call of YouTube or solitaire. All perfectly valid, of course. I live with a writer, and I see that it’s a calling as much as anything else–something one does because one must and not necessarily because it’s glamorous or fun.

But it’s no picnic being a writer’s wife, either.* If you happen to meet one, here are a few things not to say:

1. You must work because you really like your job, because writers make soooo much money.

Hah, hah, hee, ha, snort…sorry. While I like my job and happen to be good at it, I work because we need two incomes. It’s a sad reality that most writers–the vast majority, I’d venture to say–are not rich. The number of fiction writers who can support themselves and their families solely on their writing income is probably very, very small. My job also provides benefits such as health insurance, dental and vision care, and pension contributions. Even the most successful writers must fund those (and pay taxes) themselves. Of course, if you’re Stephen King, John Grisham or Nora Roberts, I don’t think that’s much of an issue for you. Most writers–even the ones who make a living at it–aren’t in that league.

2. Oh, you poor thing, having to support your husband.

Conversely, those who don’t assume we’re rich, assume that “writer” is code for unemployable bum. Nothing could be further from the truth. My husband works, and works hard. Writing is his job, and he takes it seriously, approaching it with immense discipline. Writing isn’t just staring out the window or at a computer screen, thinking deep thoughts (even if that’s sometimes what it looks like). Like any creative labor, it requires a great deal of energy, time and dedication. Most mid-list writers these days can add “marketer” and “publicist” to their job duties. Writing good books isn’t enough–you need to blog and tweet, maintain a Facebook page, make the rounds at conventions, and in general put yourself out there. In my husband’s case, he does all of this, writes amazing books, and takes care of our two small children. Hell yes, I support him; I applaud him.

3. I don’t really like science fiction or fantasy, but I’ll guess I’ll read your husband’s book if you give me one.

If my mother–the woman who endured 48 hours of anesthesia-free labor to bring me into this world–can buy my husband’s books, so can you. Especially if you’re so worried about my family’s financial state (see #2). Publishing is a business. Great critical reviews and awards are nice, but the bottom line is sales. So go buy a damn book. Hardcover is super, paperback or e-reader is lovely. If you’re struggling, go to a library and ask them to order a copy. It all adds up. Don’t think someone else is going to buy a book. Sales matter. My children and I thank you.

4. I’ve always wanted to write a book! Can your husband recommend me to his agent/publisher?

Alex has always been generous with his time and experience, helping beginning writers through workshops and speaking to local students. He remembers what it was like starting out. He can tell you how he did it, how to find an agent, give you tips on how to write an agent pitch. But no, he’s not going to recommend you to his agent–who is a lovely person, a good agent and has a perfectly good website with information about the kind of submissions she’s looking for. First, you might want to actually write that book. I bet you find it’s a lot harder than you think (see #2).

5. Oh writers, aren’t they all … depressed, alcoholic, crazy, fill-in-the-blank.

While I’ll admit that a cliche exists around creative types for a reason, just because someone is a writer doesn’t mean they’re nuts. All writers are not Ernst Hemingway. Or Hunter S. Thompson. Or Sylvia Plath. Or…okay, so there are a lot of examples. Anyway, not all writers are drunk, crazy or suicidal. Alex happens to be a funny, sweet person–a wonderful husband and father. Many other writers we know are also kind, funny, happy, normal people, no more likely to down a fifth of Scotch or kick their dogs than your average doctor, lawyer or computer programmer. They’re writers, not musicians, for Pete’s sake (just kidding).

Not that living with a writer is all sunshine and roses. There’s the staring into space during dinner as they process a plot point, the sudden rush to the laptop because they thought of a perfect line for a character, the pouting because they have to go on a family outing instead of editing, the sudden influx of say, books about pirates…

But that’s a different post.

Valette, proud to be a writer’s wife

* I say wife because I am one, but spouse works just as well, I should think.

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Burn Me Deadly paperback, Wake of the Bloody Angel teaser

5 Things Not to Say to a Writer’s Wife

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