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The Strong-Minded Snake or How To Get What You Want by Really Trying
Back in the fall of 2019 (pre-pandemic times, seems an age and a half ago now), I was waiting in my doctor’s office for the annual flu shot. My doctor at the time worked out of an old 1930’s era west-side building, a nondescript, two-story half-empty walkup that has remained entirely unchanged all these many… Read more
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Year One
Year One – Of Umingmak and Paskwâwimostos I started this blog just over a year ago, to coincide with the creation of the Ravenstones website (theravenstones.com) and the publication of the first two volumes of The Ravenstones fantasy series. Much has been accomplished and happened in my little realm since then, while momentous events have… Read more
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Where Did the Names Come From?
Creating names for the characters and places was one of the more demanding (and enjoyable) challenges I faced in writing The Ravenstones series. In comparison, working through the plot was simple. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration – both were demanding, and both required a great deal of thought. In all, 132 characters and 21 places… Read more
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Of Skazki and Bilibine
I own several books of fairy tales, most of which I purchased primarily for the superb illustrations – notably, by Arthur Rackham, William Heath Robinson, Kay Nielsen and Edmund Dulac. (See my April 24, 2021 post on Hans Christian Anderson.) Less well known to the western world are the works of Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibine (sometimes… Read more
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The Hero Has a Thousand Faces? Maybe Not.
Certainly, every successful novelist has heard of Joseph Campbell. And I’ll bet everyone who has taken a university course on creative writing has encountered his most famous work, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Pantheon Press, 1949). After all, is it not required reading? Yes, without a doubt. Did not Time magazine place the book… Read more
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Even For Dreams
In the late spring of 1982 I read W.P. Kinsella’s book, Shoeless Joe. Those unfamiliar with the book, which was about the MLB player, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and the Chicago Black Sox baseball scandal of 1919, might be more acquainted with the 1989 movie based upon it, Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner, James Earl… Read more
