What if “Carrie” were YA fiction?

My awesome editor came to our first meetings about my novel The Puppeteer with the expectation that it would be "Young Adult" literature, a goldmine of a subgenre within the publishing industry.  Without trying to quash my vision, she explained to me what was expected of a YA title. I told her, hold the phone, I hadn't …

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Top 10 Stephen King Kills

A lot of people get killed in some pretty brutal ways in Stephen King's stories.  In honor of several gruesome kills in my upcoming novel The Puppeteer (one of which is an homage to a kill on this list ... you'll have to read to figure out which ...) here are my 10 favorite / worst / …

Sick Fuck pt. II – “Hereditary” Film Review

It has been fascinating to watch opinions evolve around Ari Aster's horror film Hereditary.  It had incredible advance hype, with critics gushing about how it was the scariest, most traumatizing movie in decades. https://youtu.be/V6wWKNij_1M Meanwhile, audience response, has been much more tepid.  Maybe a letdown was inevitable. Although the film did well at the box office (with that much …

Sick Fuck: advanced musings on “Hereditary”

In rallying my friends to see Ari Aster's debut feature Hereditary, which has already developed a fearsome reputation as the most traumatically terrifying film to come out in decades, I was reminded of an anecdote from my movie-watching past. Years ago, myself and my girlfriend of the time, Jen, wanted to spend a quiet evening at …

Life is. R.I.P. Anthony Bourdain

It seems weird to be so broken up by the death of a celebrity.  I once described him in a video as one of my "spirit animals," but I don't know what Anthony Bourdain was really like, in the flesh, other than the wit, the deep voice, the toothy smile, and the public persona that …

Review: Ali Wong, “Hard Knock Wife”

I've noticed a trend among my favorite stand-up comedians -- they have two, maybe even three crackerjack, sidesplitting specials, then they drop the ball on the junior or senior effort. Maybe they run out of things to say, or start rehashing old material.  I don't blame them; you have to be a freaking genius to …

Book Review: “There’s Someone Inside Your House” by Stephanie Perkins

I have a feeling Stephanie Perkins' new Young Adult horror novel had a different working title.  There's Someone Inside Your House sounds like the kind of slasher product that can be shelved alongside Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer.  The novel definitely has those elements, but in many ways the title belies the underlying story. First …

“Describe Yourself Like a Male Author Would”

Someone sent this to me, thinking I would like it, and they were right. ‘Describe Yourself Like a Male Author Would’ Is the Most Savage Twitter Thread in Ages   https://twitter.com/gwenckatz/status/979852671573049344 https://twitter.com/whitneyarner/status/980330317247545349   As the recent male author of a book with a young female protagonist, and also given to flights of scathing self-reflection, I don't …

A Scary Way to Start Your Day

I woke up at 3:45am this morning with the sensation that someone was tapping on my ankle.  It had been a dream and there was no one there, but I was reminded of this other rude awakening, a frequently-retold but never-committed-to-writing tale of my unquiet solitary sleepitude <---(made-up word)   I came to wakefulness gradually and …

But wait, there’s a twist …

When the film "The Sixth Sense" took the world by storm, I started to notice within a few years a change in the way that the writer/punter class talked about their in-progress novels and scripts. "It's about this guy who does this thing, and he gets into this situation ... but then there's a twist …

“It’s ‘Mr. Rock,’ bitch!” Chris Rock breaks himself down

Boy, does Chris Rock look different. He's been my favorite stand-up forever (though now he has competition from John Mulaney).  I've devoured all of his previous specials, and the man had a visual brand - goatee, close-cropped black hair, fly suit. Seeing him take the stage in "Tamborine," his first special since 2008's "Kill the …