Colleen Anderson's Blog, page 47

Movie Review: The Train Wreck of "I'm Still Here"

I got to see the preview of I'm Still Here last night, another in a long list of reality, documentary, "real life" stories on film. So it's shot with a handheld video and is grainy and old looking, as well as bad to incomprehensible sound quality in parts. Just like Blair Witch Project and all those other made-to-be-real stories. But it's a documentary, sort of. Joaquin Phoenix, the star, or anti-star, of this documentary was filmed by brother-in-law Casey Affleck. Now in a way it's...

Writing: I'm a Rock Star

Okay, really I'm not but I've received a rock star review, the creme de la creme in reviews that have been good so far. Now a review is really just one person's opinion, whether informed or not but it's so nice to get reviews. I've written stories for anthologies before where it seems no one noticed, either my story or the anthology/magazine. And yes, I'd rather get a bad review than no review at all. But of course I'd rather get a good review.

From the first story I ever published (I was...

My Religion's Better Than Yours

Religion, ain't it grand? Everyone can use it to feel righteous, superior and special. In fact, people can use it to preach tolerance, yet in the same breath turn around and show bigotry and narrow-mindedness.

Nine years after September 11 and what have we learned? Place the blame elsewhere and stoke the fires under the fetid brew of religious intolerance. I speak of some Qu'ran burning putz in the US and the masses of protesters screaming against a mosque being built near ground zero in New Y...

Writing: Kiss of Death Acceptances

Perhaps the only thing worse than not getting a story or poem accepted is to have it accepted but to watch the magazine fold, the anthology be canceled, or the supposed publication fade into the ether, never to be heard from again. This probably happens to everyone at some point, but I have had it happen at least seven times. I then begin to wonder, do I have some sort of  superhero (or villain) power where I cause the publications to die? The moment they accept my piece, the end is near–the ...

Traveling in India: Toilet Terrors

Ancient Greeks had it rough but not that rough.

I have had some pretty interesting toilet adventures when traveling. Mexico City didn't flush their toilet paper but had open garbage cans beside the toilet for people to put the soiled pieces into, which was especially disgusting. Singapore required you to squat in the right direction and if you didn't flush they would fine you. Britain used something akin to parchment paper with the absorbency of stone. But India was perhaps the place where I e...

The Outsider Syndrome: Feeling Alone

I've been on holidays so I haven't posted for a bit, but a conversation with a friend got me thinking about this phenomenon that I've experienced, and others have as well. I'm not a psychologist but I do like to delve into the whys and wherefores of the human psyche and some life experience has taught me a few things about the way we think and behave.

The Outsider Syndrome is my name for the feeling that you don't belong, no matter what. That somehow, even if you're doing the same activity as ...

Writing: Rumors of Chizine's Demise

Are indeed greatly exaggerated and completely untrue. Chizine, or Chiaroscuro the online magazine of dark fiction/poetry is not defunct nor has come even close to this state. As an assistant poetry editor, I am in the know and kept in the loop. Chizine was a viable entity before it was sponsored by Dorchester Publishing/Leisure Books and continues to be so. The magazine is no longer sponsored by this company, which has been hit with low sales and is dropping their paperback line. What...

What Makes a Word a Word?

Oxford University Press, the supposed authority on the English language has recently been updating the dictionary. Every living language evolves, with slang as well as words falling in or out of favor, and meanings changing. I would think though that instead of regional (or these days, media generated) changes that are as popular as long as a show or fad lasts, the words would have staying power.

But Oxford claims they very much research these words. Their criteria are listed on their site...

Writing News For August

In the last two months several of my pieces have finally been published. In a way, this is delayed reaction because the pieces were "bought" a long time before this. However, sometimes publishers have a long lead time to publication and other times as in the case of both poems published there are other issues, such as computer meltdowns.

In March, my story "An Ember Amongst the Fallen" came out in Evolve, an anthology published by Edge publishing. Any review is better than none, as far as I'm ...

Writing: Ray Bradbury, Sexy

Once upon a time I was a child reading whatever I could get my hands on. I did the classic flashlight-under-the-covers thing (now it would be a laptop) and read read read. Nancy Drew, Norse myths, fairy tales, you name it. My mother's fiction books and eventually my brother's books, which were Heinlein, Clarke, Herbert. But I was also reading Edgar Allan Poe.

ComicCon, San Diego, photo by Sophia Quach

At least I tell myself this but I wonder now how many stories I actually read of Poe's. I...