Posted inArnzen News

Making Readers Squirm: Sensory Immersion Podcast

Last June, I went on a Summer Teaching Tour at various writer's workshops, and one of the highlights was my return as guest lecturer to the Odyssey, The Fantasy Workshop, run by Jeanne Cavelos annually at St Anselm College, in New Hampshire. My guest lecture topic at Odyssey was "Making the Reader Squirm: Sensory Immersion," which they have just released as a podcast on the Odyssey Podcast page (it is also available through iTunes). In this lecture, I discuss ways that science fiction/fantasy and horror writers appeal to the reader's "sensorium" to generate a visceral effect. The class analyzed examples…
April 2, 2011Posted inArnzen News2 Comments
Posted inArnzen News Instigation

New Website Launched for MANY GENRES, ONE CRAFT

One of my big nonfiction projects this past year was co-editing a huge, 130,000 word collection of instructional articles for writers, called MANY GENRES, ONE CRAFT: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction, with writer Heidi Ruby Miller. It's early, but the website for the book has launched, and many insightful features are planned for it in the months leading up to the book's release this coming Spring: http://manygenres.blogspot.com If you write or teach writing, no matter what genre, this book is for you. Horror readers will likely be familiar with some of the names in the book. Gary Braunbeck launches the…
December 24, 2010Posted inArnzen News, Instigation
Posted inWeblog Exclusive

“Dear Santa”: The Lost 1989 Manuscript

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Against my better judgment, for a gift I give you this Christmas story -- "Dear Santa" -- a long lost manuscript of the very first horror story I ever sold (to GAS magazine in 1989), but which ultimately never saw print. On the one hand, this is old and amateur enough to be most embarrassing. On the other hand, I think I've made a career of embarrassing myself. Enjoy? "Dear Santa" - a lost 1989 manuscript by Michael Arnzen (If you cannot read the above, see if you can click on the "view fullscreen" link at the top…
December 19, 2010Posted inWeblog Exclusive1 Comment
Posted inArnzen News

microcosm twitterzine

Check out editor Stephen M. Wilson's new twitterzine for poetry, called microcosms. I have a poem in the latest "issue" ("twissue"?) released today and more to come soon. If you don't know what a "twitterzine" is, then read this article.
May 20, 2010Posted inArnzen News4 Comments
Posted inArnzen News

Talk About Writing

A few bits of "writer"-related news to note: I'll be returning as a guest lecturer at the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop next Summer (applications for early admission due Jan 30th!). The kind folks at Odyssey just interviewed me for their blog, too, where I talk about how I persisted in the early years of my career, and where I share some advice for writers of genre fiction. [I'll also be returning to teach at the Alpha Workshops for Young SF/F/H Writers next summer, as well!] A shorter interview is attached to a brief 5-Star Review of my short story "Spring…
December 14, 2009Posted inArnzen News3 Comments