Lawrence C. Connolly's Blog, page 37
August 22, 2015
Mind Games @ Riley’s
Sometimes the stars align.
On the last Tuesday or every month, Story Night takes the stage at Riley’s Pour House, featuring storytellers and performers celebrating the art of story.
This month’s theme: Mind Games.
Every year, The Throughline Theatre features the works of new, up-and-coming playwrights as part of their regular season . . . [read more at The 21st-Century Scop].
Mind Games @ Riley’s
Sometimes the stars align.
On the last Tuesday or every month, Story Night takes the stage at Riley’s Pour House, featuring storytellers and performers celebrating the art of story.
This month’s theme: Mind Games.
Every year, The Throughline Theatre features the works of new, up-and-coming playwrights as part of their regular season at the Grey Box Theatre in Lawrenceville.
This year’s play: Games of the Mind by F. J. Harland.
The play opensSeptember 11, but you can get a preview when members...
August 17, 2015
Researching a Novel: Trekking the Rain Forest
The untouched or virgin rain forest was called primary jungle. Primary jungle was what most people thought of when they thought of rain forests: huge hardwood trees, mahogany and teak and ebony, and underneath a lower layer of ferns and palms, clinging to the ground. Primary jungle was dark and foreboding, but actually easy to move through. However, if the primary jungle was cleared by man and later abandoned, an entirely different secondary growth took over. The dominant plants were softwood...
August 1, 2015
Researching a Novel: Lost Worlds above the Clouds
It was a dull gray landscape, and as I gradually deciphered the details of it I realized that it represented a long and enormously high line of cliffs exactly like an immense cataract seen in the distance, with a sloping, tree-clad plain in the foreground.
That’s George Edward Challenger describing the Amazonian plateau in Arthur Conan Doyle’sThe Lost World, and it’s a description that came to mind when I got my first look at Mauna Kea — the tallest mountain . . . [read more at The 21st-Centu...
Researching a Novel: Lost Worlds above the Clouds
It was a dull gray landscape, and as I gradually deciphered the details of it I realized that it represented a long and enormously high line of cliffs exactly like an immense cataract seen in the distance, with a sloping, tree-clad plain in the foreground.
That’s George Edward Challenger describing the Amazonian plateau in Arthur Conan Doyle’sThe Lost World, and it’s a description that came to mind when I got my first look at Mauna Kea — the tallest mountain in Hawaii and (arguably) in the wo...
July 29, 2015
Researching a Novel: Into the Abyss
It glows by night, filling the airwith a blood-red cloud.
By day, itsrising steam billows dull gray from an active crater. Either way, it’s a wonder to behold, a doorway to a hot spot of subterranean fires that recallsthe opening lines from Canto Three of Dante’s Inferno:
Only those elements time cannot wear
Were made before me. Beyond time I stand. . .
[Read more at The 21st Century Scop].
Researching a Novel: Into the Abyss
It glows by night, filling the airwith a blood-red cloud.
By day, itsrising steam billows dull gray from an active crater. Either way, it’s a wonder to behold, a doorway to a hot spot of subterranean fires that recallsthe opening lines from Canto Three of Dante’s Inferno:
Only those elements time cannot wear
Were made before me. Beyond time I stand.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
The Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii has been active at theHalema’uma’u Crater since 1955. It’s t...
July 27, 2015
Researching a Novel: My Lost World
Rain forests, deserts, volcanicmountains, green-sand beaches. They’re all part of the alien landscape of anovel project thatlinks and expands mynovelettes “Daughters of Prime” and “The Others” (both of which originally appeared in F&SF).Since the alien setting will feature ever-more prominently in the book-length version, I figured it would be a good idea to. . . [read more at The 21st-Century Scop].
Researching a Novel: My Lost World
Rain forests, deserts, volcanicmountains, green-sand beaches. They’re all part of the alien landscape of anovel project thatlinks and expands mynovelettes “Daughters of Prime” and “The Others” (both of which originally appeared in F&SF).Since the alien setting will feature ever-more prominently in the book-length version, I figured it would be a good idea to experience such landscapes first hand.
Fortunately, I was able to find everything I needed in some remote cornersof the Hawaiian islands...
July 7, 2015
This Week’s Show: The Story in the Song
Whether sung or recited — it’s all story. And this weekend Lauren Connolly-Moore and I will be exploring the connections between story and song in a four-hour show that gets underway at 8:00 on Saturday evening.
The place is Riley’s Pour House in Carnegie, the same place where our story night events have been taking place.
Weather permitting, we’ll be performing on Riley’s outdoor stage — under the same stars that we had hoped would make an appearance for our “Starry Nights, Celestial Convers...
