Posted inArnzen News

To Write Well…

The following is an excerpt from the front page of my Fiction Writing syllabus at SHU, which I posted to scribd and soundcloud as part of the course. I was surprised to find out tonight that it was highlighted as a "Featured Document" by scribd.com! Neat. To Write Well Here's the audio version, recorded for the students in the class to respond to. Teaching does take time away from my writing, but it's just as rewarding to me, and it's fun to share in the students' creative spirits. Our class is going to be doing a lot of experiments with…
August 22, 2012Posted inArnzen News
Posted inWeblog Exclusive

On the Irrelevance of Genre Poetry [Live]

At the fun "Raw Dog Screaming Press Book Party" at the Morgantown Poets group in West Virginia last month, I opened my reading by sharing a piece I'd written for Locus Magazine, a poem about why I write poetry, which I contributed to their running Roundtable series on speculative poetry.  Here's my recitation of "On the Irrelevance of Genre Poetry," recorded during the reading. I don't often write things like this -- an opinion essay told in the form of a poem -- but the audience really seemed to laugh and also get charged up by the poem. Press the…
June 7, 2012Posted inWeblog Exclusive1 Comment
Posted inBlather

Is the horror genre dead? Garth Marenghi has the answer.

That's Garth Marenghi above, responding to a question about whether the horror genre is dead. I did a spit take when I watched this (as I did with the rest of the DVD).  It's a childish response ("you are!") from a faux has-been in the genre.  I love it.  And yet there's some nugget of truth here, some wisdom to the comedy.  Genre critics have suggested that genres go through stages of evolution, with parody becoming the zenith of a genre (and a sign of its impending doom).  Garth Marenghi's Darkplace television series is to horror what Blazing Saddles was…
January 31, 2012Posted inBlather