Since my daughter, age 7, is obsessed with dinosaurs, we’ve gone through every permutation of them we can, from the spectacle of Jurassic Park to the kaiju pummeling of Godzilla to the head-scratching WTF of Land of the Lost. And from my own long-ago childhood, I dredged up the Hanna-Barbara one-season wonder Valley of the Dinosaurs. In my memory, I’d … Read More
Chatting at the Bottom of the Lake
Steven Stack is an internationally-produced playwright for teens and middle-schoolers, and a full-time acting teacher for kids. He’s also one of my best friends, and he’s just published his first novel, The Bottom of the Lake. Here we discuss the fairly unique project of turning a play into a novel. Me: You’ve written many plays, so why did you decide … Read More
Revisiting Night Streets, Part 3
You can read part 1 of this series here, and part 2 here. I’m old enough to remember when comics were considered strictly for kids. The very term “comic book” implies the immaturity and humor of the earliest examples. Comic strips in the newspapers were even grouped together on what was called the “funny pages.” The idea that one day comics would … Read More
Interview: Sean Grigsby, author of SMOKE EATERS
Dragons are ubiquitous, and as a result, it can be difficult for a writer to find a new way to present them. Sean Grigsby, a fellow west Tennessean, has found a great approach: he combines dragons with his own experiences as a firefighter in his first novel, Smoke Eaters. I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of it, and … Read More
Giants of West Tennessee: An Interview with Memphis’ own Southern Avenue
NOTE: This is the latest in an ongoing occasional series about notable figures from my home region. This one is unique because, instead of a nostalgic look back, it’s about something brand new. This interview needs two introductions to set up the context. Number one: when I was growing up, WHBQ-AM out of Memphis was the radio station, a Top 40 melting pot … Read More
Interview: the Lucky Nows
The music in the Tufa novels comes from three main sources: classic folk music, modern indie music, and me. By that, I mean that if I can’t find lyrics to quote from in the first two sources, then it falls back on me to create them. I’m under no delusions about being a songwriter, and I don’t necessarily consider my little … Read More
Godfather of Green: Danny Mullikin of Tuatha Dea on the Green Album
Last year, in one of the greatest bits of synchronicity I’ve ever been part of, the band Tuatha Dea released Tufa Tales: Appalachian Fae, an album based on and inspired by my first three Tufa novels. I was also lucky enough to appear at four different events with them, to be featured (briefly) in their video for “Wisp of a … Read More
Interview: Marco van Belle, director of Arthur and Merlin
Last week, I posted a review of Arthur and Merlin, a movie that really surprised me with how good it was, and how well it worked within its low-budget means. I asked director/co-writer Marco van Belle if he’d answer some questions about it, and he was kind enough to agree. AB: What inspired you to tackle an Arthurian movie in … Read More
Interview with Lee Karr, author of The Making of Day of the Dead
In 1986, George A. Romero–one of my heroes–released the third film in his original “Living Dead” trilogy, Day of the Dead (following Night and Dawn). The previous two films were both classics, and popular successes. They were also about as different from each other as two films could be. So I, like every other horror fan, was eager to see what … Read More
Interview: filmmaker Lisa Stock
When it was announced a few years ago that Joss Whedon would be doing the new Wonder Woman movie, I was of the unpopular opinion that he was dead wrong for it. My main reason was that, in all the shows he’s produced and scripts he’s written, he has yet to show he can write about anything other than boys … Read More