Jonathan Ryan's Blog, page 72

Leaving Your Mark in Unexpected Places

Not long ago, I posted an article about my journey as an aspiring writer and the struggle to find inspiration. Time and again I’ve wrung myself out, mentally and emotionally into these imaginary people living in my head, found myself stuck and had to refill my cup of creativity. When I encountered road blocks early [Read More...]

SpongeBob SquarePants is Serious Business: How Pop Culture Helped My Family through a Horrific Struggle (with a message from the real SpongeBob inside!)

  Pop culture often gets a bad rap, especially from those styling themselves as intellectuals and “real artists”.  Some argue that it dulls the senses, doesn’t encourage “higher thoughts” and deadens the cultural tastes.  A few critics would go further to say it poisons our minds. They are right in some ways. Popular culture wields [Read More...]

Ebolaphobia: Bullying Families Into Keeping Healthy Kids Out of School

A few days ago, officials at Howard R. Yocum Elementary School in Maple Shade Township, New Jersey, took it upon themselves to play doctor and label two incoming students from an Ebola-free country as a potential Ebola risk to their entire student body. Stop and let the absurdity of that statement sink in. It all [Read More...]

Using the Shepherd’s Crook: Pope Francis Schools Evangelicals, the Media, and the Entire Catholic Church in One Sermon

As a person going through a divorce, I took a deep, personal interest in the Synod on the Family. I was thrilled that my beloved church wanted to take a pastoral interest in the needs of its sheep.  I wanted to see good, sound and practical steps from the assembled church leaders on how to [Read More...]

HWA Scary Writers: Leigh Lane

  (So, here is our next HWA writer. Leigh M. Lane has been writing for over twenty years. She has ten published novels and twelve published short stories divided between different genre-specific pseudonyms. She is married to editor Thomas B. Lane, Jr. and currently resides in the outskirts of Sin City. Her traditional Gothic horror [Read More...]

Horror Writer Goes in Seach of Michigan Dogman…Will Said Author Return Alive?

Sometimes, writers hit a wall. It happens to the best of us. I won’t call it “writer’s block”. This frightening tale is an urban legend used to scare young  and developing storytellers. Anyone with a work ethic can find a way to put words on a computer screen. Maybe what a person writes is bad, but it can always be rewritten. [Read More...]

HWA Scary Writers: Tom Calen

(As everyone knows, I just became a fully active (and proud) member of the Horror Writer’s Association. So, I thought it would be a cool way to celebrate Halloween by interviewing some writer’s from the HWA about the genre. Tom Calen has some great insights below…)  What made you want to write horror? By the [Read More...]

Simpsons Executive Producer Al Jean: “Religion Will Be A Part of Character’s Death”.

As I watch TV and movies, I’m often frustrated at how they treat the subject of religion. Pop Culture either ignores it (wouldn’t want to offend anyone) or degrades it as much as possible (just about every episode of Family Guy). Very few shows or movies take religion at face value and address it in all of it’s glory and absurdity. [Read More...]

Revisiting Star Trek: VOYAGER

May 23, 1994 – a cheer erupted from a house packed with nerdy (and not-so-nerdy) high schoolers as the Riker-commanded three-nacelled Enterprise unapologetically demolished a Klingon bird of prey. Star Trek: The Next Generation was about to end. What was next? Shortly after, my brother secured a bootleg copy of the Star Trek: Generations movie [Read More...]

Salt Lake City Comic Con: Interview with Neal Adams: “Comics can Entertain and Make People think on a Deeper Level”

(Salt Lake City Comic Con has been a mind blowing experience. I have so much to write about and I’ll try to get to all of it in the next week. I’d planned to give a run down of the past two days in tonight’s post. My plans got changed in a hurry. Why? Well, on Thursday, [Read More...]