(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) The Campbells and the MacDonalds. The Montagues and the Capulets. The Hatfields and the McCoys. In between the small-scale violence of one individual against another and the large-scale violence of … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Watching the news, it’s easy to get the impression that we live in extremely violent times. Certainly some kinds of violence are all too characteristic of our modern society. In … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Intellectual property may seem like an odd topic for wrapping up a discussion of the literary arts, but there’s a sense in which it feeds directly out of the printing … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) What is poetry, anyway? At school you probably got taught about things like rhyme and meter (certain arrangements of stressed and unstressed beats in a line). These are frequently found … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Since these essays are crafted with an eye toward science fiction and fantasy, I should specify at the outset that I don’t mean “literary storytelling” in the sense of modern … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) “Once upon a time . . .” I promise, it isn’t just the fact that I’m a writer that has me dividing up the topic of storytelling into two essays, … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) However much you dislike going to the dentist now, you’ve got it good. Like surgery, this is a field that has benefited immeasurably from the widespread use of anaesthetic. Imagine … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) Somewhere along the road from “East African plains ape” to “anatomically modern Homo sapiens,” we shed most of our hair. It does linger in places, though, the most noticeable of … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) It isn’t just enough to get the dirt off your skin. Since time immemorial, we’ve sought to make our skin perfect: unmarred, unwrinkled, paler or darker depending on the fashions … Continue reading
(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.) “People in the past never bathed!” You hear this one a lot. Is it true? In the sense it’s usually meant (“ewww, people in the past didn’t understand basic hygiene”), … Continue reading
