Chris Abouzeid's Blog, page 22

Friday Faves: Your Heroine’s Heroin

By Charles Garabedian I learned of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death on the day I drug screened one of my patients and discovered later in the day that the adolescent purposefully diluted his urine specimen to falsify results. Addiction punched me in the face twice that day—once by the tragic ...

Spinning My Wheels…or, Life After Book

By Kim Triedman I’ve been thinking about rats a lot these days.  The laboratory variety, to be precise.  I imagine them rat-racing on their spin-ny things and bar-pressing for sweets and good drugs.  I think about them a lot, and something heavy turns over in my gut. And then I ...

Haunted by the Ghosting

 Photo courtesy of gnuckx (Flikr)  Guest post by Kate Whouley I am a closeted novelist. The closet light is on, and it isn’t too dusty in here. I am surrounded by fabulous outfits I covet, and am allowed to try everything on. I like it in the closet. I am ...

When The Spirit Moves You

By Bethanne Patrick A few years back, a creative coach and writer named Bindu Wiles hosted an online writing-and-yoga challenge–30 minutes of yoga per day combined with 750 words of writing per day. I’m no yogini, but when Wiles said that those 30 minutes could be spent entirely in “corpse ...

Steve Almond and Jane Roper on Humor OR Underpants Are Always Funny

Guest Post by Steve Almond & Jane Roper (interrogation by Kathy Crowley)  We at Beyond the Margins are always out to discover the deep dark secrets of writing.  Toward that end, we kidnapped two of the funniest writers we know, sequestered them in the elevator at the Harvard Square T ...

Sochi, My Worrisome Valentine

By Nichole Bernier I first heard about the stray dogs of Sochi via my twitter stream, when a sweet homeless Shepherd-mix was posted by ABC journalist Matt Gutman. Several days later, U.S. skier Gus Kenworthy posted a photo of the litter he plans to adopt. Sochi, the world learned, had a dog problem, and ...

The 6 Most Common Mistakes When Writing Dialogue and How to Avoid Them

By Laura Harrington “You can write the sharpest, most glittering, wisest, poetic, hilariously dazzling dialogue, but if that dialogue doesn’t do its true work and open the dramatic world underneath, it’s dead on arrival.”  John Guare, author of Six Degrees of Separation, House of Blue Leaves, and one of my favorite ...

Valentine, You Pierce My Soul

By Juliette Fay If the thread of romance were to be pulled from the storyline of every book ever written, what a bleak and boring catalogue we’d be left with. I’m not just talking about genre romance or chick lit or even its less-strictly-romance-oriented sister, women’s fiction. I’m saying let’s imagine ...

Bookstore Economics 102

by Kathy Crowley Over the past year or so I’ve learned a lot about the economics of independent bookstores.  That’s because my husband and I have been trying to work our way into the business. Who knows if we’ll get there – some days we’re all ready to order the ...

Going to AWP in Seattle? Try Not to be an Asshole.

By Becky Tuch Around this time of year, many of us in the literary world are gearing up for another AWP conference. This year’s event takes place in Seattle, and is expected to bring nearly 15,000 people to the city. Accordingly, the interwebs are awash with advice for conference-goers and ...