Maurice Broaddus's Blog, page 52

Palate Cleansing (aka I'm made of random writing related thoughts)

Okay, so I've needed to not write for a while. The last couple weeks I've gone largely blog dark as I had to get my novel done (Knights of Breton Court Book Two: King's Justice). Once I get locked into fiction writing, I'm pretty much stuck there. Then after wrapping that up, I just wanted to not write or think about writing for a while ... mostly because my brain is made of mush right now.

But I suck at breaks.

Already I'm thinking of stuff I want to do in another pass through of my novel ...

A Couple New Stories Out...

My story "Hootchie Cootchie Man" is in the current issue of Black Static
And I have a story and have been interviewed by the sexiest editor in horror, Michael Knost,* in the current issue of Shroud.



*I know, I've just made Jason Sizemore weep in his coffee.

2009 Broaddus Family Christmas Party

With the second novel of my Knights of Breton Court series done (finished about 12 hours before this picture was taken) and the contents for the Dark Faith anthology set, the Broaddus family turns its attentions to entering the Christmas season with our tenth annual themed Christmas party. They started out as murder mystery dinners but quickly got too large. This year's theme was "Musicals" though we were very generous about what was considered a musical. Any excuse to celebrate with our f...

Dark Faith: The Table of Contents*

POEM: "The Story of Belief-Non" by Linda D. Addison
"Ghosts of New York" by Jennifer Pelland
"I Sing a New Psalm" by Brian Keene
"He Who Would Not Bow" by Wrath James White
"Zen and the Art of Gordon Dratch's Damnation" by Douglas F. Warrick
"Go and Tell It on the Mountain" by Kyle S. Johnson
"Different from Other Nights" by Eliyanna Kaiser
POEM: "Lilith" by Rain Graves
"The Last Words of Dutch Schultz Jesus Christ" by Nick Mamatas
"To the Jerusalem Crater" by Lavie Tidhar
"Chimeras & Grotesqueries" ...

Belly Pride (aka Eat THAT Kate Moss)*

To know God is to know beauty; to know beauty is to know God. Just as God is the source of all truth and goodness, God is also the source of all beauty. God is the Supreme Artist – the Creator of all. Thus, everything that is beautiful reflects God's artistry. Indeed, God is Beauty itself. –Rich Vincent








I was bumping around Amanda Palmer's web site as well as the fatshionistas web site and was reminded of a few things. We have reduced beauty to surface matters, not thinking twice about being ...

Wounded Stories III: Wounds As a Source of Healing

One of my favorite essays I've ever read was Brian Keene's Bleed With Me. It was about what artists have to do for the sake of their art, which is essentially to bleed for others. Our pain, our hearts, our souls laid bare in order to convey the truth of art. Put another way, it is the vulnerability and transparency of the artist that is the source for the best art experience.

Admittedly, there are varying levels of transparency. Sometimes the emotional truth is easier to get to through the...

Wounded Stories II: Suffering Servant

We all carry around hurts with us, pain which, left untreated, has a way of settling in and rotting us from the inside like a festering wound. Sadly, hurts and lies have a way of shaping us as we carry them around inside us like an infection. Be we wounded by parents, having felt the cold indifference of friends, the sting of a careless word from a pastor, a sense of abandonment at a critical time, or just the tragedy of life in a fallen world, our stories of what carves out pieces of us ar...

Wounded Stories I: Wounded Story Tellers

"…I have found that the very feeling which has seemed to me most private, most personal and hence most incomprehensible by others, has turned out to be an expression for which there is a resonance in many other people. It has led me to believe that what is the most personal and unique in each one of us is probably the very element which would, if it were shared or expressed, speak most deeply to others. This has helped me to understand artists and poets who have dared to express the unique ...

The Blind Side – A Review

The key phrase to keep in mind while watching The Blind Side is "based on a true story". Directed, written by John Lee Hancock (The Rookie), the movie sprang from the book "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game" by Michael Lewis. In this true story, Michael Oher was adopted by the Tuohy family, thrived in his new environment and currently plays for the Baltimore Ravens. As such, I won't get to give my near obligatory commentary of this being like Diff'rent Strokes or Webster brought to the b...

Ally McBeal – A Review

"I've been down this road / Walking the line, displaying my pride / And I have made mistakes in my life / That I just can't hide…I believe I am ready for what love has to bring…I've been searching my soul tonight / I know there's so much more to life / Now I know I can shine the light / To find my way back home" --Vonda Shephard "Searching My Soul"

From the first time you hear the familiar piano strains and Vonda Sherhard's vocals, you immediately recall Ally McBeal like an old friend remember...