Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 6
April 27, 2025
Writer’s Desk: Keep Going, Even When It’s Terrible
Sometimes dedication and time are all you have to throw at the book. But eventually it can work. Dedication will win out, not a burst of inspiration.
April 20, 2025
Writer’s Desk: There Are So Many Worse Jobs Out There
We don't all get the Hemingway life. But no writer ever said their work was murder on the knees or involved inhaling toxic fumes.
April 17, 2025
Screening Room: ‘Warfare’
My review of the new film Warfare just ran at PopMatters: A tight and terrifying docudrama combat procedural, Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland’s Warfare tracks just one engagement in the Iraq War. The firefight was unremarkable enough to have almost certainly been forgotten by anybody not there. For the soldiers and civilians involved, however, it was likely …
April 13, 2025
Writer’s Desk: Get Out of the Way
It’s hard for writers to avoid making themselves the subject. They do, after all, spend most of their time with just themselves and the page. Theoretically, they think of the reader. But they’re not around. The writer is. Always. This can cause you to be just a little too present in the work. Noticeable. Drawing …
April 7, 2025
Screening Room: ‘Death of a Unicorn’
My review of Death of a Unicorn is at PopMatters: If you find yourself wondering at any point during Alex Scharfman’s Grand-Guignol fantasy satire Death of a Unicorn, “Wait, how come there are unicorns in the Canadian Rockies which nobody has seen before?” then this is not the film for you. However, if some part of …
April 6, 2025
Writer’s Desk: Listen to Advice
When Gary Shteyngart met Philip Roth, the unofficial dean of American letters had some advice for him: He told me not to eat butter… This may not seem that helpful at first glance. But Shteyngart saw a silver lining: I’m not sure that counts as “writing” advice, but it’s kept me squarely in the 128-132 …
March 31, 2025
Screening Room: ‘Gazer’
Gazer sidles up to its story cautiously, mirroring its main character’s questioning nature.
March 30, 2025
Writer’s Desk: Keep Moving
According to screenwriter writer David Koepp, who has knocked out screenplays for everything from blockbusters like Jurassic Park to nifty little ghost stories like Presence, momentum is key to getting anything done and done well: You want to just execute it and have it done, so you can then go back and read it to see what’s …
March 22, 2025
Writer’s Desk: Keep Looking Around
Some books turn out exactly as the writer imagined. Not many, though. Shelby Foote understood how crucial it is to never ignore something good, even if it doesn’t fit with your plan: I can’t begin to tell you the things I discovered while I was looking for something else… Follow that digression. See where it …
March 20, 2025
Reader’s Corner: The Didion Box Set
The new Joan Didion Collection from the Library of America is a monster, but in a good way. It packs together an incredible seventeen works, ranging from her best-known collections of essays and reportage (The White Album, Slouching Towards Bethlehem), novels (Run River, Salvador), and later works (The Year of Magical Thinking). It’s pretty much …
