Stacey E. Bryan's Blog, page 12

Scrape the Black Stuff Off

It happened. Previously when talking about the similarities between a particular Battlestar Galactica episode and this year’s election, I ended with the fact that although I wasn’t enthralled with the democratic offerings, the alternative was unthinkable. And now it appears that it happened. The unthinkable. The unthinkable has happened.

While the world is in shock and nobody quite understands how Trump, this Baltar-like candidate (sans the genius IQ) came to be the president elect, nobody i...

Make America Great Again: Let’s Get Dirty

[image error] A disenfranchised population. An exhausted, disgruntled workforce. Great, yawning chasms that separate the populace’s beliefs and expectations and, in turn, exacerbate division, frustration, anger, breathing new life into the death of hope.

America today? Yeah. But also the reboot of “Battlestar Galactica” almost a decade ago.

I’m sure others have already tackled this comparison, but since we’ve been re-watching “Battlestar Galactica” for the past couple of weeks, the parallels to what’s goi...

Let’s Get Dirty

A disenfranchised population. An exhausted, disgruntled workforce. Great, yawning chasms that separate the populace’s beliefs and expectations and, in turn, exacerbate division, frustration, anger, breathing new life into the death of hope.

America today? Yeah. But also the reboot of “Battlestar Galactica” almost a decade ago.

I’m sure others have already tackled this comparison, but since we’ve been re-watching “Battlestar Galactica” for the past couple of weeks, the parallels to what’s goi...

Unleashed and Howling

It was night, and dogs came through the trees, unleashed and howling.

Much like the intriguing first line of Mike Allen’s “The Button Bin”, mentioned in an earlier post, the first line of Gil Adamson’s The Outlander flies out like the dogs she’s speaking of: unleashed and howling. And then the novel continues in unfaltering prose, painting the life of Mary Boulton, a 19-year-old widow, in alternately joyful and harrowing strokes.

I imagine that’s how life in early 1900s rural Canada would b...

Black Lives Matter: A Study in Loss

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My mouth was agape as I read an article from Paste Magazine talking about the new TV time travel show “Timeless” :

“In one of the episode’s best lines, he tells the guard that he hopes he lives a long life so he can see Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson (“or just anybody named Michael”) and other notable African American figures because, ‘Time is not on your side.’”

Yeah, it’s a light article talking about a sci-fi TV show. We can’t expect an in-depth thesis about anything of real...

A Study in Loss

My mouth was agape as I read an article from Paste Magazine talking about the new TV time travel show “Timeless” :

“In one of the episode’s best lines, he tells the guard that he hopes he lives a long life so he can see Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson (“or just anybody named Michael”) and other notable African American figures because, ‘Time is not on your side.’”

Yeah, it’s a light article talking about a sci-fi TV show. We can’t expect an in-depth thesis about anything of real...

Afternoon On A Train: Pt. 2

Part 2

I’ve mused over time whether or not an encounter with Mrs. Roosevelt would have been the same for another teenager, one without my father’s challenges.

That kid may have thought, “Gee, the President’s wife is swell,” and gone merrily on his way. He or she probably wouldn’t have either known or remembered, for example, that in 1939 the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let Marion Anderson perform at Constitution Hall. My father knew, though. He knew that Mrs. Roosevelt re...

WOULD YOU RATHER…with Stacey E. Bryan

Wednesday, September 14, 2016 Would you rather….with Stacey Bryan

Please welcomeStacey Bryan, author of Day for Night.

Stacey was raised in the San Fernando Valley but born in San Francisco, where she left part of her heart. She received a BA in English from UCLA, studying under world-renowned Irish journalist and novelist Brian Moore. Her work has appeared in several literary magazines in New York and L.A., including Ginosko and The Rag. She is currently working on various short stori...

Afternoon On A Train

Part 1

The blurb describing award-winning author Octavia Butler’s sci-fi novel “Fledgling” wraps up by asking a question: Are all humans bigots, or are all bigots human?

Don’t panic yet. Take a deep breath. Smell the optimism in the air.

And here’s a little back story first.

The book my father, Dr. Edward Bryan, and I were supposed to write together was called “I’m Innocent,” a memoir detailing his experiences as the Chief Dental Officer of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Metropolitan Detent...

Without Apology

Don’t try to tell me that writing contests aren’t one of the most maddening and frustrating endeavors a writer can partake in. In the maybe six or seven contests that I’ve entered, I’ve only won one–and that was back in college. Then once, later in life, I made the second cut of a sci-fi contest but didn’t make the final stage. Contests are like a terrible battle. They’re like war.

But here’s the thing: I don’t know about you, but many times when I’d read the winning entries…they just didn’t...